ON Friday afternoon, volunteers from the Cape Recife Conservancy, Wildlife and Environment Society (Wessa), NMMU, and pupils from Theodor Herzl and Cape Recife high schools participated in the International Coastal Clean-up event. The 40 volunteers spent an hour and a half cleaning 2km of the Noordhoek-Chelsea Point picnic area along Marine Drive.
We collected 59 bags of rubbish, weighing some 367kg, plus large plastic pallets and lobster pots.
Most of the rubbish was plastic and glass bottles, followed by plastic braai trays, used nappies and condom packets.
The CR Conservancy sponsored school and individual prizes for the most weights of bags collected. Sadly among all the litter, we found many dead animals washed up on shore: seals, gannets and an otter.
Tragically, a baby bottlenose dolphin had also been washed up on the Noordhoek beach. One of the Cape Recife High pupils found the animal and tried pushing the still- alive baby back out to sea, but shortly after it spilled back onto the beach.
NMBM Coastal rangers patrolling the area arrived and called Bayworld in to try to ascertain the cause of death.
A big thank to all the volunteers who helped clean up our seas and beaches, so that fewer marine animals may suffer horrific deaths from eating plastic and entanglements.
Morgan Griffiths, Wessa, Port Elizabeth
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