Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

A really lovely place to picnic if it wasn't covered in tiny
pieces of class and hundreds of cigarette butts. 

On Saturday, we went to help out with a beach clean up in Kalk Bay. For the Capetownians, you know the beach underneath the bridge before you get to the harbour? The dodgy, dirty one? Yes, that's it. On Saturday it wasn't actually that dirty, this didn't fill me with joy though because I am sure much of the rubbish has been swept out to sea during recent rainy days and Spring tides. Nevertheless we still found plenty of small things (and not so small things) to keep us busy (and incidentally to make my hamstrings really stiff - more pilates required!)

The beach clean up came after a "African Marine Debris Summit" that I managed to sneak in to because it was held in my lovely office building. There was an interesting mix of business and conservation which I think is important. There is no use having conservationists telling conservationists how evil industry is, I don't think that gets anyone anywhere. It was interesting to hear that there is no legal requirement for manufacturers to put a label on the products to say whether they are recyclable. It was more interesting to hear that much of the lobbying for responsible plastic manufacture and recycling initiatives comes from passionate people in the plastic manufacturing world. 

It was also interesting to hear how the South African recycling industry has the capacity to expand and is leading the way in Africa. It was crazy to hear that businesses do not want to advertise the fact that their products are almost 100% recycled plastic because they believe their consumers wouldn't want to buy their products if they knew! (I would be shouting it off the rooftops!) It was also interesting to hear that only recently has a company bought a machine that can deal with the portion sized yoghurt tubs that I have been faithfully sending off for recycling for years. At least part of the reason somethings can't be recycled is because companies don't want to use water soluble glue to put the labels on and because they use multiple materials on one product (foil seal, paper label etc). Much of the decision about what gets recycled or not is at the conveyor belt where people manually sort through things and therefore choose large over small, clean over gross... That's what it comes down to... 

I want to rant about the fact that there are still some people that don't sort their recycling out from their rubbish. Wouldn't it be better to pay people to sort through recycling at a recycling station rather than a landfill? I want to rant about the fact that there are people who think it is OK to throw their cigarette butt out their car window, educated adults that should know better. What do you think happens to your cigarette butt? Besides the fact that I have read somewhere that those horrible cigarettes actually impact on birds' eggs because they pick up them up to line their nests, where do you think they go? I want to rant about the fact that people use the excuse of "job creation" to justify their littering. 

OK, I am limiting the rant to one paragraph because no one likes to listen to angry ranting. While I was picking up endless cigarette butts, glass shards and bottle caps on Kalk Bay beach I was wondering where I learnt that it was not OK to litter. I don't remember one moment that made me realise. I know my 8 year old niece is disgusted by litter... how can we get more people to be? How can we make it socially unacceptable? I think people are bombarded with so many causes and troubles that the emotive tales of baby leatherbacks dying from ingested microplastic will be ignored because people can't cope with more bad news (yes, that was one of the talks). 

I am not sure of the answer... but I do know that this is something that we can all help with. I am such a confrontation-avoider and hate talking to strangers but maybe I have to get over that when I see people littering. Maybe we should all carry a bag with us to pick up litter EVERYTIME we go to the beach (I know my Dad does). And maybe we should be selective in our purchases by looking for the labels that tell us what type of plastic it is and whether it can be recycled. I know that un-dyed plastic is also easier to recycle so that is something simple to look out for. Check out some of these websites for more information:

Treevolution or Cape Town Green Map or  WWF South Africa

And talk about it! (In a non-ranting way, sorry about the rant but my fingers smelt like an ash tray and my hamstrings are still stiff!)