Doing it for their towns
The Spring Clean Greater Knysna initiative celebrated its third year last weekend, and organisers were thrilled with its most successful edition yet as almost 300 people took part in clean-ups throughout Knysna and Sedgefield.
The clean-up was organised for the first time by Ocean Odyssey in 2018 and has consistently grown to more and more areas being cleaned each year. This year was a landmark year for the initiative due to the scale of the event in terms of area covered and number of participants. In line with Covid-19 regulations, teams were restricted to a maximum of 10 people, but this did not deter about 290 eager volunteers from taking part. "This event is not only to clean up but to also educate the public and make them more aware as to where their waste ends up," said organiser Teresa da Mata. "We hope it makes them think twice before walking past a piece of litter after participating in an event like this."
This year's event took place on Saturday 19 September, which also marked the annual International Coastal Clean-up Day (held every third Saturday of September). A total of 29 teams took part in the cleanup, covering 29 areas around Knysna and Sedgefield, including Knysna's Main Road, Brenton-on-Sea, Thesen Island, Waterfront Drive, Myoli Beach, Cola Beach and
Barrington.
"We are really proud of the vast area that was covered and cleaned during the cleanup," Da Mata said. In total, the teams that slaved away on Saturday hauled in 317 bags’ worth of rubbish, not including trolleys and other large items picked up along the way. The three areas that produced the most bags filled with rubbish were Brenton-on-Sea (63 bags), Waterfront Drive (50), and the area between Knysna Angling Club and the Train Bridge (32).