Sundays River Trash Bash 2015

September 19th marked the annual Internal Coastal Clean Up Day supported by over 90 countries worldwide.  How awesome is that!

I have not been part of the fun the past couple of years as it falls on the same weekend each year as a niece’s birthday in Plettenberg Bay.

I was happy to be part of the volunteer team again this year.

As with all years, there are donations from our community and sponsorship from various companies including The Waste Trade Company, General Motors South Africa, Colchester KwikSpar, Algoa Plastics, PPC Cement and many more.

I was amazed at the wonderful sponsorship and donations this year, affording the kids incredible goody bags and wonderful prizes – it was extremely heart warming.

Goody bags were filled with so many wonderful things

There were 150 local kiddies (mostly from Colchester primary school) who participated in the day which started with homemade soup, rolls and apples at registration after collecting their t-shirts.

Fuelling up before trash bashing

Before everyone set out on picking up what others have carelessly discarded, The Waste Trade Company’s representative Emmy Nxayeka  gave a fabulously enthusiastic and all important environmental talk emphasising the importance of the three R’s:-

“In order to drive environmental change we need to start by educating our youth,” Kay Hardy, general manager of The Waste Trade Company.

Learning how to care for our environment

Much excitement to go on the river

The day ended with boerewors (sausage) rolls and cake as well as the much anticipated prize giving.  The children get so excited wondering if they could possibility be the only boy and the only girl to win a bicycle.  Before the final draw for the bicycles, there were 40 other great prizes including backpacks, food hampers and grocery gift vouchers.

The boys bike is donated by Colchester Spar and the girls bike by PPC Cement

Lots of lovely prizes

640kg of trash was collected over 2 hours

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Sundays River Clean Up

Before we get to today’s post, please understand I won’t be able to visit and read your posts this week.  We  have suffered the wrath of Mother Nature.  We experienced the worst of the Eastern Cape rains the past week and to date have been dealing with damage control.  Our roof, ceilings  kitchen and bedroom need repair so my energy will be focused on that for the next while.  I do have posts scheduled and will try keep up with moderating your comments.  I am looking forward to catching up with you all soon again. 🙂

Saturday 16 September 2012 was International Beach Clean Up Day – it just so happens that our annual Sundays River Clean Up aka Trash Bash fell on the same day.  This year, I was requested to take the “official” photos.  I must say that taking shots of  moving busy targets is somewhat more difficult than I had hoped.  Food is definitely much easier.

Everybody registering and getting their peak caps, rubbish bags and protective gloves.

Full bags ready to go into the skip.

Waiting for the last of the boats to arrive and having some fun in the water.

Fun in the sun after a morning collecting rubbish; waiting for food and prizes.

The initiative is supported by various sponsorship who donate so many wonderful things.  The kiddies from the local school come along to learn about the importance of keeping our environment neat and clean and after their morning of collecting rubbish were given a boerewors roll and cupcake and were given goodie bags filled with cool drinks, sweets, crisps, thermos mugs, some bags also had torches while others had water bottles.

Fun filled goodie bags.

Concentrating hard not to drop her plate while carrying her mystery goodie bag.

There was also a lucky draw to win a bicycle – one for the girls and one for the boys.  There was also loads of lucky draw prizes which included cooler bags, stationery, toys, peak caps, tog bags and food packs.

A very proud young boy with his new bicycle.

A very happy little girl who couldn’t quite believe that this was her very own bicycle to keep forever.

 It was reassuring to see that this year the skip wasn’t nearly as full as in previous years, so it seems people are starting to take more care of our environment. 🙂