Sunday, 03 March marks Word Wildlife Day – a day commemorated to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild fauna and flora. In support of this global programme, Interwaste, together with The Future Kids, gathered on Sunday, 24 February to clean up a 400m long stretch of beach in the Strand, Cape Town.
As part of this clean-up, a group from The Future Kids gathered to pick up litter that is polluting the beach. This specific clean-up collection alone amounted to 118kg of litter and waste that was removed off the beach, and in less than 2 hours; which firstly demonstrates the extent of the litter and pollution problem, but also how quickly a positive impact can be achieved through collaborative effort.
In attendance was Rocco Da Silva, 10 years old, student at Somerset College, who was on his 11th clean-up project. Da Silva said: “I think our beach clean-ups are a great way of getting together with a purpose, which is to help save the environment, by removing the litter that is on the beach, there is no reward for doing this, the reward is having a clean beach to play on and saving our planet.”
Da Silva added: “It is important for all people of South Africa to realise that most of the plastic that the world produces ends up in our oceans, killing our marine life and destroying our planet, all citizens of planet earth need to act now and start making a difference!”
Natasha Willcocks, Marketing Manager at Interwaste, said: “This World Wildlife Day we need to remind ourselves about the importance of preserving our oceans, seas, and the wildlife – and well the fact that our impact is not always healthy for such a significant life source. Our waste is convicting a large number of marine birds and animals to death by entanglement or poisoning, as well as leading to chemical contamination of the fish we eat – all of which can be avoided through better recycling programmes and waste management. We all need to all start getting involved and offering a helping hand.
It is such a privilege for us, a company, to be involved in and support such initiatives, and work with the likes of The Future Kids, which continue to create and raise awareness within our communities about the importance of curbing the plastic tragedy by recycling and properly disposing of waste.”
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