Residents pull together to clean beaches

The Leisure Bay community demonstrated true community spirit by pulling together last week, to clean up the beach.

Even the Bakker family of the Netherlands, who are homeowners here, cleaned up below their house making a huge difference.
A huge amount of plastic washed onto the beaches and shoreline, origin probably the catchment area of rivers along this stretch of coast.
Jenny Botha Koen, chairperson of the Leisure Bay Conservancy said they started at Peter Pan Beach and in its rocky areas a big, thorough clean-up had already been done by residents.

“Residents had also done a wonderful job of clearing away plastic on Kidd’s Beach. Once done at Peter Pan, they moved on to Drakes Bay which we knew looked bad,” she said.

Along the beach entrance path near the bin, residents had packed a large amount of plastic from the previous day’s collection.
The beach was littered in plastic as far as the eye could see, from north to south.

The team, Chantelle Nell, Steve Botha, Eric Ntshangase and Simo Ndumela and Jenny picked up a lot, and bagged everything including what residents had left. A total of 11 refuse bags, chock-a-block full were collected.

These bags will be collected by Ray Nkonyeni Municipality (RNM).

“There is still a lot of plastic in one particular area at Drakes, and we have the commitment of a visiting homeowner to clean up at Drakes ‘corner’ (which is to the north of the entrance path). Wonderful community spirit, and we thank you very much,” she said.

In the meantime, Eric and Simo had moved on to the north side of TO beach and packed the result of their toil at the TO parking area.
They bagged their pickings too, ready for collection by RNM.

There is still more to be done all along they shoreline, but Jenny said the greatest portion of this plastic pollution is now off the beach.
Jenny said they don’t know who the residents are who helped to clean up, but each one of you are heroes!

Meanwhile, Southbroom Conservancy thanked its awesome community who picked up and are still continuing to pick up all the plastic debris off the beaches during this extra surge.

Taryn Burns, media liaison officer for the conservancy said that if you walk along parts of the coast’s beaches you may think there is no more because a lot of the big visible stuff is the first to be cleared.

“We are appealing to all beach goers to still continue to take their bags with when out for a walk as there is huge quantities of the little microplastics in among the organic debris,” she said.

This is what our marine life eat and it’s a reason for many of them dying a long, unnecessary and painful death.

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