This festive season has seen our beaches packed to the max! In Muizenberg they estimated an approximate 40 000 people on the beach late afternoon on New Year’s day. At Fish Hoek beach we had people setting up camp in parking lots, the park, everywhere…
How beautiful that we can all enjoy na
ture’s gift. A pristine beach, a colourful park for kids to play and rolling dunes? In contrast to this, how absolutely disgusting that most of the people that come to the beaches during these festive times leave all their crap behind! All of IT!
It really angers me when I take an early morning walk on the beach and the City’s just cleared excess seaweed and their workers diligently cleaned the green bins and picked up the litter ONLY TO HAVE SOME NITWITS TRASH OUR COASTLINE as the day progresses!
Just this morning I again witnessed 
how filthy some people are! My son and I, armed with our plastic bags, collecting litter with some other volunteers at Fish Hoek beach clean-up. A group of young families, relaxing on the beach, kids playing with lovely plastic beach buckets and spades while the soiled disposable nappy is disposed off right next to the kids! I looked at them, and they said “please, thank you” as I put the nappy in our plastic bag. Walking up to them I kindly pointed out that there are two green bins behind them for their rubbish and that the beach is not a dump. They just blankly stared at me. The mind boggles…
Walking from the lighthouse down 
to the river on Fish Hoek beach, my son and I collected 2 big bags of rubbish! Plastic bottles, alcohol bottles, plastic packets, clothing, cooldrink cans, sweet and chip wrappers and much more. We had some dune warriors collecting the waste in the dunes and the group of people ranged from the very young – 3 or 4 years old to people in their 60’s if not 70’s.
It was a beautiful morning, my son played in the water, and was my eagle eyed spotter for the splashes of colour and reflective rays along our shoreline – the tell tale signs of litter!
If you are going to the beach today, 
please remember “Trash in the Can” and if there is no bin in sight then keep your trash in your bag until you find a bin. That’s all there is to it, it’s not rocket science, you do not need a degree, you do not need to be literate, even a 1 year old can do this!
So here’s to keeping our beaches clean and to supporting the efforts of CleanC who provides all the gloves and plastic bags for these beach clean-ups. If you have a beach in your area or a park, etc. that you would like to keep clean then make contact with the organisation to get involved.
The Fish Hoek beach clean-up takes 
place the 1st Saturday of every month, meet at the Lifesavers Club parking lot at 9am! Join us, bring your kids, your gran, your uncle, your neighbour, your dogs; and let’s have some fun! Remember sunscreen and a sunhat – as you can see, my son got so hot he took his t-shirt off!
PS – big thanks to the City’s Solid Waste team for their efforts this festive season and to Simon who eagerly leads the Fish Hoek clean-ups!
