South Africa (Northern, Western and Eastern Cape) Mouth of the Salt - PDF document

Enviromark Phone: 021 591 5512 Plastic Federation of South Africa Fax: 021 591 5516 P.O. Box 13511, N1 City, 7463 E-mail: john.kieser@plasfed.co.za I NTERNATI ONAL COASTAL CLEANUP 2 0 1 0 South Africa (Northern, Western and Eastern Cape) Mouth of the Salt River Cleanup – Nature’s Valley – 18 September

PAGE 1 The 2010 International Coastal Cleanup. 2010 Was again a growth year for the International Coastal Cleanup in South Africa and we can with all sincerity say that the event as calendar event has with Arbor Day become benchmarks as successful environmental events. It is a team effort and without this growing team we just could not achieve the successes that are outlined in this report. This report is also stepping away from the previous reports where we summarized each cleanup that took place in the month as it made the report too bulky and time consuming. With the increased cleanups this would have made it unwieldy but the individual cleanups is outlined in a table which is available on request. A. Preface. 1. In March, South Africa was represented for the first time at the International Coastal Cleanup Conference in Cancun, Mexico and it was informative to see that the issues regarding cleanups are not just limited to our shores. 2. At the conference it was highlighted that there has been an increase in funding for environmental and community projects even in a time, like now, when the economy has taken a slump. This was indeed, very visible in South Africa and I outline the increased sponsorship in the section dedicated to it. 3. With the permanent employment of the National Coordinator with the Plastics Federation of South Africa there has been an increase in various projects that the Plastics Federation is involved in the coastal and marine environment. More of these actions are outlined in the section dedicated to that issue at the end of the report. 4. The International Coastal Cleanup has as one of its main goals the raising of awareness of the issue of marine debris and littering. This has always been a part of the project that did not meet its set objectives but in this year we have started to tackle the problem by the employment of a company to support our media efforts and this meant more than 500 % increase in media exposure. With this team on board already for the 2011 cleanup, we can just increase and meet our awareness goals. 5. With all this mentioned growth as outlined above we have been able to increase the amount of volunteers. This is outlined in the section dedicated to as well as the unforeseen challenges in regard volunteering in that section. Lastly, we were tasked by Sonya Besteiro, Associate Director of the Ocean Conservancy at the Cancun Conference to see if we can identify a Coordinator for the Namibian Coastline. This was done and Mr. Gys Reitz of NACOMA (Namibian Coastal Management) managed the efforts in that country this year. B. Summary. Between the 6 th and the 30 th of September 2010, 11 867 (7746 in 2009) volunteers cleared debris from the beaches, underwater areas and waterways of the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape. Of this number of volunteers, 4 756 audited (2 943 in 2009) the material they picked up on a standard datasheet of the Ocean Conservancy as an International effort to see what material is the most prevalent in various waterways and marine systems on an International level.

International Coastal Cleanup 2010 report for West, East and North Cape provinces – South Africa. In 2009, volunteers removed > 11.5 tons of litter in audited cleanups. This year we removed > 13.65 tons* of litter . (* The total tonnage removed and distance cleaned is of course much higher than this figure as this figure only reflects the data from audited cleanups). As in 2009 there was an increase in the cleanups in informal settlements. This was due to the need for it and communities using the opportunity to clean their area at the end of the winter months. Due to increased marketing of the event we also had cleanups further away from the coastal zone areas and many of the “corporate cleanups” happened in these areas. During the last five years there has also been a growth in effort from the bigger urban municipalities to ensure that the coastline in these areas is cleaned on a daily basis as they depend on tourism to a large degree. This has resulted in more cleanups focusing on areas of concern where this service is not provided with an increase in logistics for the various coordinators. Once again a show of support for this calendar event is the fact that most of the beach coordinators of previous cleanups repeated their support and we have increased our effort with new local coordinators. Top ten items in 2010 International Coastal Cleanup Cups, Plates, Forks, knives, spoon Ten items collected the most in audited cleanups Beverage bottles/glass Fishing line Rope Cigarette filters Straws/stirrers Beverage bottles (2l and less) Food wrappers/containers Plastic Bags Caps lids 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 Amount of items collected in audited cleanups 2

International Coastal Cleanup 2010 report for West, East and North Cape provinces – South Africa. Top 10 items collected in past 3 years audited cleanups in Northern, Western and Eastern Cape. 2008 2009 2010 Plastic caps from bottles Plastic caps from bottles Plastic caps from bottles 10 507 items . 8 203 items. 7 494 items. Plastic beverage bottles Plastic beverage bottles Plastic Bags 6 001 items. 4 424 items . 4 867 items. Plastic Bags Plastic Bags Food wrappers and containers 3 309 items 2 546 items. 4 199 items Glass beverage bottles Food wrappers and containers Plastic beverage bottles 2 940 items . 1 934 items . 4 041 items Food wrapper and containers Rope Plastic Straws/Stirrers 2 629 items. 1 811 items . 3 806 items. Cigarette filters Cigarette filters Cigarette filters 2 487 items. 1 762 items. 2 721 items. Rope Plastic Straws/Stirrers Rope 2 334 items 1 730 items. 2 438 items. Plastic Straws/Stirrers Fishing line Fishing line 2 205 items. 1 513 items. 1 752 items. Fishing Line Glass beverage bottles Glass beverage bottles 1 855 items. 1 145 items. 1 122 items. Beverage Cans Beverage cans Cups, plates, forks, knives, spoons 1 440 items. 824 items. 1 014 items. • Plastic caps from bottles is for the third year running the most numerous item collected and this was found even on beaches where there is a structured cleanup on a daily basis as on the Blue Flag Beaches. Caps outnumber the other individual items by far. • There has been steady decrease in the amount of all litter collected in the 3 recorded years , for instance plastic beverage bottles have dropped from the number 2 spot in 2009 to 4 th in this year’s cleanup, but the amount of individual numbers was not reduced significantly. Its position was taken over by an item that has shown steady growth since the 2008 cleanup - that of food wrappers and containers. • Another item that has increased noticeably is the amount of plastic bags. Plastic shopping bags formed the bulk of this figure. • Another item that has shown a marked increase is that of plastic straws and plastic sticks from lollypops and ear buds. • A new item on this year’s list was plastic cutlery to number 10 with beverage cans being removed to the 12 th position below number 11 position held by clothing and shoes which has also increased since previous cleanups. C. Sponsorships. To increase the amount of volunteers and establish a streamlined logistical coordination for the future we have started with “Banner Cleanups” and these have formed the bulk in the increase of sponsorships. 3