Community rallies together at Kalk Bay Harbour to tackle pollution on World Oceans Day

This weekend, more than 150 people joined the annual World Oceans Day cleanup at Kalk Bay Harbour, making it the biggest in the event’s nine-year history.

Kalk Bay Harbour is one of the oldest working harbours in South Africa. With its colourful fishing vessels it is an iconic place, known to locals as a place to get fresh yellowtail after a strong southeaster.

What remains hidden is what accumulates beneath the surface. Rubbish is blown in from the harbour moorings, or washed down through the stormwater drains, settling on the sea floor out of sight.

For nine years, a team of volunteers has been coming together to clean it up, both in the water and on land.

The beach cleanup was organised by Sentinel Ocean Alliance. Trail Freedivers provided the backbone of the underwater cleanup. Twenty divers set off into the water, orange mesh buoys keeping them visible, while allowing the collection of rubbish such as fishing lines, plastic cutlery and plastic wrappers that have settled on the seafloor and stay there.

On land, about 50 people came through Waves for Change alone, many of them young surfers from Ocean View and Lavender Hill who traded their Saturday surf for gloves and rubbish bags. Eight volunteers from NSRI Station 16 in Strandfontein drove 18km to provide surface support and safety cover.

“We love this harbour and want to keep it pristine,” said Clint Abrahams, Deputy Station Commander at NSRI Station 16.

Across eight years of cleanups, Oceano Reddentes has built one of the most detailed coastal pollution records in Cape Town. In Kalk Bay harbour more than 8,500 cigarette butts, 2,500 sweet wrappers and almost 600 bottle caps have been collected, every single item hand-counted and catalogued. After every cleanup, all waste is taken to False Bay Recycling, where a team sorts through the rubbish by hand, keeping as much as possible out of landfill.

“My wish for World Oceans Day is that more people who haven’t always had access to the ocean start seeing the ocean and the beaches as safe spaces. The more they use the beaches, the more they’re going to protect them. That next step comes pretty naturally, if you want to look after what you’ve connected with,” said Robyn Cohen, COO of Waves for Change.

The annual World Oceans Day cleanup at Kalk Bay Harbour was organised by Sentinel Ocean Alliance in collaboration with Oceano Reddentes, Impact Divers, NSRI Station 16, Trail Freedivers, Waves for Change, Sealand Gear, The Lab, Sociable, VANS, Cape RADD, and Protect our Paths. DM