Oceans highlighted in Mangroves clean-up
Plastic and polystyrene remain a major threat to the world’s oceans.
A MASSIVE crowd of 120 people collected one ton of waste along the Mangroves beach on World Oceans Day, 8 June. This year, the theme for the annual international day was ‘Healthy Oceans, Healthy Planet’.
Founder of the Beach Clean-Up KwaZulu-Natal, Jacqueline Jonker, said the aim of the day was to raise awareness regarding pollution.
“Every week more and more litter is washed down the river and onto our beaches. Plastic is particularly a major concern as it takes decades to degrade and simply ends up floating in our oceans,” she said.
A recent study conducted by oceanographer, Marcus Eriksen, has revealed that the Indian Ocean alone has over one trillion pieces of rubbish floating in it.
According to the Mount Edgecombe resident, shoes, metal tobacco tins, plastic, deodorant bottles and polystyrene remain the most common types of litter found on beaches.
“The polystyrene is another menace. It breaks up into thousand of pieces and is very hard to clean up. It is very concerning as it is easy for fish and other marine life to ingest, which could kill them or cause us to ultimately ingest it when we eat the fish,” she said.
Jonker said she was thrilled with yesterday’s turnout. “This is the type of crowd we hope for on our Saturday clean-ups, so to see so many people supporting the initiative on a weekday was very encouraging,” she said.
