On 31st January, Sustainable Seas Trust and Mantis Hotels teamed up to tackle the shocking amount of litter in Donkin Reserve, Port Elizabeth by holding a clean-up. A total of 3845 litter items were collected.
The two organisations cleaned the park, the banks, it’s flower beds and along the street in front of King Edward Hotel. After collecting litter for an hour, they then sorted through the waste and recorded its results.
The top 10 litter items collected are:
- Cigarette butts (668)
- Glass pieces (418)
- Sweet wrappers (375)
- Newspaper/Books/Magazines/Paper (373)
- Food wrappers (335)
- Metal caps (292)
- Other plastic items (243)
- Bottle caps/lids/rings (190)
- Cardboard fragments (114)
- Containers/Tubs (foam) (106)
The litter that could be recycled was collected by the Waste Trade Company. The Sustainable Seas Trust holds a strong stance in no waste to landfills, because waste in landfills is not contained. This means that rainwater and wind can carry plastic and other litter into streams, rivers, and drains, which lead to the oceans.
Starting this year, the Sustainable Seas Trust will be holding clean-ups every month in various sites around Nelson Mandela Bay. The non-profit will showcase how congested with litter our environment is, and will be calling on the public to join them and be a part of the solution Towards Zero Plastics to the Seas of Africa.
