Cape Town Beach Cleanups Go Plastic Free

Cape Town Beach Cleanups is a fabulous organisation that has been organising beach and community cleanups for the last 4 years.

On the first Saturday of every month, you will find them handing out bags and gloves at Blouberg Beachfront, Melkbosstrand, Sunset Beach, Woodbridge Island (Milnerton), Muizenberg, Strand, Gordons Bay, Big Bay, Sea Point, Hout Bay, and Glen Beach (Camps Bay).

Anyone who walks along these beaches knows just how much rubbish is washed up on the shore and left behind by people visiting the beach. When GreenHome participated in a beach cleanup a while back, we found mostly plastic pollution on the beach. It mostly consisted of small pieces that had been broken down by the sea. It’s these little plastic pieces that are mistaken by sealife as food and thus enter our food chain.

We realised what a huge job beach cleanups are, and wanted to help. We saw that plastic bags were being used to collect the rubbish. It is our belief that the Beach Cleanups should ideally happen without new plastic being introduced into the process. So we decided to sponsor the Cape Town Beach Cleanups with reusable hessian bags. Now the rubbish is collected from the Cape’s beautiful beaches and the Cape Town Beach Cleanup crew are leading by example to reduce plastic dependency.

Says Gregory Player from Cape Town Beach Cleanups. It’s about “Reduce, Reuse, Refuse. Reducing the amount of plastic bags used at cleanups and reusing the bag over and over.”