International Coastal Cleanup Day is here again and this year WESSA is heading back to Great Brak. Last
year was a great success: 47 people came together and collected half a tip full of rubbish from the Great
Brak Estuary mouth and the surrounding beaches. This year we would like to top that.
International Coastal Cleanup Day is held every year on the third Saturday of September. It is a drive to
have coastal communities all across the planet collect as much discarded plastic, metal, glass, builder’s
rubble and other unwanted debris from the world’s beaches. Some amusing items have been reported
over the years including guitars and rubber chickens. It is estimated that more than 7 million kilograms of
trash was collected last year by a whopping 560 000 people across 91 countries.
WESSA is once again organising a beach clean-up event for the Great Brak River mouth area. Anyone and
everyone is invited to join us on for this year’s International Coastal Cleanup day the 19th of September
for the event. We will be providing refuse bags and organising the removal of the collected rubbish.
WESSA volunteers will also facilitate data collection to report back to the Ocean Conservancy group as a
part of their international program. Join us and do your bit to help make the Garden route a trash free
zone!
We’ll meet at Groot Brak Rriver mouth (Parking area at the end of Suiderkruis Rd.)
@ 8am on Saturday, 19 September.
Make sure to bring along your own:
- Garden gloves &/or braai tongs to safely pick up rubbish
- Sun-protection
- Hand sanitizer
- Water & snacks
- Comfortable clothes & shoes that can get wet/dirty
Several other groups in our area are also planning clean-up events as a part of this international
drive. Pacaltsdorp High and Glenwood House will be active on beaches closer to George – meet
up with them by contacting Monica Vaccaro of the Landmark Foundation on 083 7118 322. In
the Mossel Bay area the Oyster Bay Conservation Trust would like to invite schools,
conservancies and the public to join up with one of their groups - contact Kay Prinsloo on 044
6013149. For more info on WESSA’s Groot Brak River clean-up event contact Edith Mertz on 071
183 4072, [email protected].
To learn more about International Coastal Cleanup visit:
www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/international-coastal-cleanup.