Scores of dead fish found among litter
Volunteers said there were close to 70 dead fish on the beach.
SCORES of dead fish were spotted during a beach clean up on Saturday, 12 December as volunteers picked through masses of plastic pollution and debris.
Organised by #CleanBlueLagoon, the clean-up saw about 10 volunteers brave the rainy weather to pick up litter.
“There are two regular volunteers who were here today. They said they normally see about four or five dead fish, but today there was close to 60 or 70 on the beach. These type of fish are usually seen in the lagoon,” said Dominic Naidoo, a local tour guide and owner of Travel Bug Tours, who takes over from #CleanBlueLagoon founder, Dale Johnson.
Also read: Litter piles up at Blue Lagoon
Volunteer, Litha Nzulwana said the dead fish attracted birds to the area.
“We have seen polystyrene and plastic in the past, but today there was a lot of dead fish. Some of them had scrapes on them, but some had no wounds at all, which means they could have eaten plastic. We saw plastic and little pellets of polystyrene. The birds were just sitting there this morning and they were feeding off the dead fish,” he said.
Naidoo said 150 bags of litter were collected on the day.
Also read: Successful clean-up for Durban North Enviro Fixers
“We are seeing a lot of polystyrene and plastic, especially cooldrink bottles,” he added.
With tons of litter still left on the beach, Naidoo appealed to the community to join in the next clean up.
“The clean-up is usually from 8am until 11am, but we are asking people to support where they can, even if they just to come at 8am and leave at 8.30am – you don’t have to come for the full three hours,” he said.
Naidoo challenged community members to consider just stopping by to collect a bag or two of litter. For more information, visit the #CleanBlueLagoon Facebook page. There will be updates about upcoming clean-up dates and directions to the Beachwood Mangroves reserve.
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