Eco beach clean-up as Chinese litter washes up on Africa's pristine southern shores

Read this post on TravelFeed.io for the best experience

---

---

Thanks to the pure soft white sand, the beaches on the southernmost shoreline of Africa are some of the cleanest looking in the world.  All you can see is fine white smooth sandy beach or dune stretching for miles. Especially in this tourist hotspot called Plettenberg Bay. 

The cleanest beaches around

I have been hiking along these shores for over 15 years. This region, called the Garden Route, is some of the most attractive coastline in sub-Saharan Africa. The purity and cleanliness of the setting really enables me to feel purified just roaming along these shores. 

Soft clean white sand (with ony river grass from the lagoon),  as far as the eye can see

Since it's so clean and pristine, I like to keep it that way, so I have a little mini project I call "Keep the Cape in shape". This is the Western Cape province of South Africa where tourism is one of the main income generators for the country. Travellers come from all over the world to enjoy the mild sunny climate and vast open natural surroundings at a very favourable exchange rate. 

Day 1 plastic litter collection with lots of bottle tops 

When I do my beach walks of a few kilometres at a time, I like to collect any random plastic bits that seem to wash up on shore from the ocean. Although the land is clean and unlittered here, it is impacted by the global pollution that fills the world's oceans, like the mass of accumulated plastic called the "great Pacific garbage patch" for example. 

Day two litter collection including Chinese water bottle label.

It stretches for miles and looks like a small island floating on the surface of the ocean. Although the land is clean and unlittered here on the beach, we are all impacted by the global pollution that fills the world's oceans, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, for example. 

Why am I finding Chinese plastic water bottles washing up on the southern Africa shoreline? 

The Garbage Patch stretches for miles and looks like a small island floating on the surface of the ocean. It's an ecological problem and it seems that single-use plastic has overtaken us and is coming back to haunt us. And it appears to be washing up on our pristine southern African shores. 

Day 3 litter collection. As you can see it's not much but it's still not a good site on the clean beach. 

Litter is rare on this coastline so any small piece that washes up really stands out. Over the past week I have been collecting all the plastic I find from each daily hike along the Robberg or Keurbooms beaches here in Plettenberg Bay on the south coast of Africa. 

Mostly it's plastic bottle tops and water bottles. What bewilders me is that lately most of the bottles have been Chinese. Why are plastic water bottles and even glass food bottles washing up on the shores of southern Africa?

Perhaps there is a cargo ship or Chinese fishing trawler somewhere offshore who is dumping waste into the ocean nearby. Or maybe it's just the detritus of flotsam and jetsam from the ocean's garbage patch. 

Day 4 of the beach litter clean up campaign

After each daily hike I photographed the contents of my litter collection for that day before dumping it in the bin. You can see that it's not particularly much, especially compared to what I saw in Thailand about five years ago on my last tour of the southern island beaches. 

A very unusual site on the southernmost coast of Africa - although it may have been just a freak anomaly after a particularly rough stormy period.

Perhaps that's because Thailand is right next to China. Here in my shore the amount of plastic is so small that it can fit into my pockets each day. So it's minimal, and on the vast white sandy coastline is hardy noticeable. Thus we are fortunate. However, the specifically Chinese plastic and glass bottles leave me wondering about their origins. 

Message in a bottle...a long way from home. 

In this small way I render a little service to the beaches that bring me such joy on a daily basis for years on end, by helping to keep what little bits of plastic I find off the sand and in the bin. I see this place as a bit of paradise and I want all the holiday visitors to see it that way too, when they pass by. So I "keep the Cape in shape" as a small token service to show my appreciation. 

How are the beaches in your part of the world? Are they as clean and pristine as ours here in the south Cape? Or do they also get plastic washing up from the ocean's garbage patch? Let us know in the comments below. 

This article written and uploaded from my mobile phone using the Travelfeed app which you can download for free, and using my own photos. Life has never been so easy thanks to Web3, blockchain and cryptocurrency. I hope you're also benefiting from having your feet on the soft beach sands and your head in cyberspace. 

---

View this post on TravelFeed for the best experience.