Plastic pollution is a hot topic globally that adversely affects the Earth’s environment, and as a result, affects wildlife, their habitat, as well as humans. The human race’s so called “progress” has exacerbated the problem, with humans producing tons of plastic every year.
According to Wikipedia, as of 2018, about 380 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide each year. From the 1950s up to 2018, an estimated 6.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced worldwide, of which an estimated 9% has been recycled and another 12% has been incinerated. This large amount of plastic waste enters the environment, with studies suggesting that the bodies of 90% of seabirds contain plastic debris.
The effect on wildlife is enormous with some researchers suggesting that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by weight!
The magnitude of this problem is enormous, GLOBALLY!
There are countries that are driving waste recycling, such as Germany, Austria, South Korea, Slovenia, Wales and Switzerland. What about South Africa?
Research by Lauren Hankel and Melissa Burgess, from the CSIR, indicates that in 2010 South Africa ranked 11th on the list of the worst offenders regarding plastic pollution in the ocean. According to WWF, over 80% of marine pollution originates from land-based sources. In South Africa, only 16% of plastic is recycled. The rest of the plastic ends up at landfill locations where they can end up in rivers (due to wind, littering, improper waste management, overflowing landfills) and eventually end up in the ocean. Unfortunately more than 8 million metric tons of discarded plastic ends up in the ocean.
In the Western Cape, South Africa… Knysna specifically, there is a young person with vision, passion and drive, who is making a difference. Her name is Sahara, a 17 year old who lives in Rheenendal, just outside scenic Knysna. Here is her inspiring story:-
I was homeschooled for all my schooling years and completed my high school matric last year at the age of 16. I live and grew up with my whole extended family (mom, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, dogs, cats, chickens and now goats!) on a small holding in Rheenendal. I have always been surrounded by nature and my passion for the planet was sparked at a very early age when I made the connection that our actions could have severe negative consequences on the environment and I decided I wanted to create change in the way we live with nature. At the age of 8 years I decided I wanted to be president, so that I could create that change, and in my very young mind I thought that was the only way people would every listen to what I had to say. Now though, after going through quite a journey, discovering and learning so much and now creating my own initiatives, I realise that you really don’t need to be in a position of power, (you don’t even need to be adult!) to stand up for what you believe and let your voice be heard.
So now that you’ve got a bit of a backstory, lets get on with the more interesting stuff!
Since becoming aware of the terrible effects plastic has on not just the planet but also on ourselves, and embarking on my own journey towards living plastic free, I had really started to notice the insane amount of plastic that the people around me used. From piles of plastic shopping bags, to a single mango stuffed in plastic and the endless amounts of plastic packaging, I just saw plastic everywhere, but I didn’t see a widespread reasonable alternative. More over, I didn’t recognize a lot awareness surrounding the use of and problem of plastic. And so at the end of last year, I got sick and tired of just watching all this happening around me and not doing anything about it and decided to start a campaign in an effort to raise awareness around plastic and help curb the use of single use plastic shopping and produce bags.
In May 2019, I officially launched my campaign, “What the Bag?”, to 50 people under the magnificent tree at the beautiful “The Node Knysna” with owner, Mary-Jane. The launch was something so special and it was the first time that I was coming out and talking to people about the things that had been mulling over in my mind for so long.
So, how does the campaign work?
Having been inspired by a Biomimicry workshop conducted by my dear friend and mentor, Sue Swain who runs BioWise, I decided to use the Biomimicry principle of Waste Nothing and build the campaign on that – I felt there was no point in campaigning against plastic if my initiative was still going to produce its own waste and further promote a linear consumerist pattern. And so by seeing waste as a resource and taking a look at the resources already on hand, I decided to sew the shopping bags and produce bags out of “waste” fabric. This fabric is donated to me by the local community, businesses and companies. From material lying in the back of your cupboard to cloth advertising banners from guesthouses and even old parachutes, I have been so lucky to have the community around me happily donating a multitude of fabrics which allows be to sew the bags using an already existing resource instead of buying new.
I sew the shopping bags and produce bags myself and then hand out sets of bags for free. In return one must pledge to use the bags and reduce their waste and then they must pay it forward, so tell one other person about the message around plastic and the campaign. That way that person can come and get their own free set of bags and continue to pass on the message – creating a mushroom effect of connected change.
I have now reached a point where I can no longer sew all the bags myself and have an agreement with EpilepsySA in Knysna. I will be developing the campaign into a business to start selling the bags as well. However, from the start, accessibility and inclusivity have been at the heart of the project as I truly believe that the only way we will ever create change is if we can reach all spectrums of society. This means that I will be selling the bags at a reasonable price so that a wide range of people will have access to them – no R250 cloth shopping bags from me! Plus, due to sewing the bags out of donated fabric I don’t need to spend money on buying fabric which is fantastic as material can be quite expensive.
The Crowdfunding has launched!
I have set up a crowdfunding project on Thundafund to raise money to kickstart the business side of the campaign – I will still be running the campaign alongside the business, using some of the profit and putting back into the campaign. With my goal being to sew 2000 bags for 2020, all of which will be handed out for free, I need to raise funds to achieve my goal. By donating just R20 (larger donations are welcome of course!) you can make the creation of a set of bags possible, and that set of bags will be handed out for free with the important message to inspire, motivate and create change! Donate here
“What the Bag?”
This opened up quite a few doors for me and I have been lucky to be able to talk to schools and also hold my own “conscious conversations” where we talk about all things planet related. It has also been a gateway for me to get involved in other projects and along with Sue Swain and partners from in the Knysna Municipality, SANParks and Edge of Africa, we have created Youth Forum for the high schools in the area. The Youth Forum is a place for youth passionate about the planet to get together and work on various projects. We really want to take the forum to the next level and get more high schools involved and also start getting more active in public projects.
Annual Waste Nothing Clean Up in September AKA International Coastal CleanUp Day.
Another project myself and Sue have also been working on is actually an initiative started by Ocean Odyssey in Knysna called “Spring Clean Greater Knysna”. This event was also held in 2018 and 2019 with much success and now has spread to include Greater Knysna. The event basically allows for people to sign up and be team leaders of their own clean ups in areas of their choice.
Sue and I decided to sign up and lead our own clean up in George Rex Drive. There is a stormwater catchment that empties out in that Cathy Park area which means a lot of garbage collects in that area. But honestly there is no point in doing a clean up if the waste being collected is simply going back to landfill and most likely end up in the same place you picked it up or out into the ocean – is just continues that same pattern.
So we decided to create a Waste Nothing Clean Up where all the waste collected will be dealt with responsibly, and either bottle bricked or recycled with landfill being the absolute last resort for items that really can’t go into a bottle brick or be recycled (such as dirty nappies).
Upcycling waste
We had the option of upcycling some of the items, if an individual is looking for a particular item or makes waste art then usable pieces are delivered to them. One example will be to take all plastic bottle caps – these will be “What the Bag?” signature “label” to brand the bags once I start selling them. I’ll be sewing a bottle cap onto each bag instead of printing and spending money on a label – again using an existing resource that would otherwise have gone to waste!
The logistics
We split into 2 different teams and stagger them so that team 1 will collect waste an hour before team 2 and then while team 2 collects waste, team 1 will sort, clean, cut up and bottle brick the waste they collected during their clean up hour.
We also opened up the option for other team leaders conducting clean ups on that day to use our WASTE NOTHING template and make their own cleanups waste-wise as well!
We needed quite a few empty 2L soda bottles for the bottle bricks and so we created a drop off point at The Node, so that we could use them in our clean up, those also conducting Waste Nothing cleanups were able to pick up bottles from The Node for their clean ups.”
