BBC 4th SATURDAY on 27 JUNE 2024
The Stony Point Eco Venue was a great place to host the recent BBC event that highlighted ways to reduce what we throw away. Our overabundance of waste has such a detrimental impact on the ocean and marine life and being at the penguin colony was a very real reminder of this.
Barbara Jenman invited some residents to share their stories of how they implement some of the “5Rs” and many of the other “Rs” in a personal, business or organizational set-up.
PART ONE: BOTTLE TOPS, BREAD TAGS, BOOKS, CRAFTS, COSMETICS, PLASTICS, FAST FASHION AND FRAMES
Micaela Knight, a teacher at Pringle House Eco School, coordinates “hands on” eco programs for the children. They collect bread tags and bottle tops for the Sweetheart Foundation. The school is now an official local collection point, so residents can drop these items at the there. The children help sort the tags and tops and the Foundation collects them. They are exchanged for money at the recycling facility. This goes towards buying wheelchairs for people who can’t afford them. https://www.sweetheartsfoundation.org/
The children also join community events such as the BBC Betty’s Bay beach clean-ups and the clean-ups in Pringle Bay. In June they joined the BBC Penguin-Pals event to help load hacked rooikrans which was then transported to Stony Point to be used as nesting material for the penguins. See the Penguin-Pals report on this event, below.
For convenience, Betty’s Bay residents can also drop their tags and tops at The Butterfly Effect (BE) in Porter Drive where they will be passed on to Pringle House. The BE will be featured in Part Two in the August BBC update. https://www.facebook.com/butterflyeffectnpo/
(Ed’s note: In Europe the plastic bottle tops remain attached to the bottles once they are opened. Such a pity that that is not replicated here!)
Louise du Preez is a Food and Cosmetic Scientist with 34 years of experience in research and development, quality control and manufacturing in both the Food and Cosmetic industries. She has been very aware of the problems of micro-plastic and the plastic packaging overkill.
She has worked from home since 2006 developing her own skincare range, Dupre, which is based on plant derived oils such as olive-, avocado- and sweet almond oil, and is free of chemicals. She has reduced packaging by using containers that can be re-used and refilled and is also exploring other materials such as bamboo in order to move away from plastic packaging.
Louise recently moved to Betty’s Bay and, besides working towards setting up her cosmetic business here, she has volunteered in community programs such as the BBC Penguin-Pals.
Verona Rochart, due to her prior work in a Shark Institute, is very aware of the extreme amount of plastic and microplastic that ends up in the sea. Birds and fish ingest these small pieces, or get tangled up with fishing lines, which leads to their eventual death. We also ingest these micro-plastic pieces when we eat certain inshore fish. (Consult SASSI re sustainable fishing). She believes education is important to make a community aware of plastic pollution.
Part of this micro-plastic comes from the Fast Fashion industry. Fast Fashion is found in most clothing shops and departmental stores. It is mainly synthetic, easy to wash, relatively cheap and is soon discarded to buy the newest “fashion”.
Recently more second-hand clothes shops have emerged, where one can find better quality or pre-loved clothing e.g YAGA. In Betty’s Bay the well-known “pre-loved” clothing shops include PenguinKIDS at the Betty’s Village Centre, The Concept Repeat Boutique next to Bloubakkie and KAWS in Kleinmond. Friends can also arrange fun events to swop clothes and help reduce some of the impact of Fast Fashion.
Wendy Lucas and her husband Mark, residents of Betty’s Bay, own a picture and mirror framing business called MADE BY HAND which is based in Observatory. The family business started in 1994 and it has now developed to the stage that they make their own products for picture framing and framing of mirrors.
They initially used an imported putty product for moulding frames which became very expensive. Now they make use of the offcuts of the Medium Density Fibre (MDF) and the by-products of their process, mill it into fine sawdust and use their “secret recipe” to make their own pliable putty. This putty is moulded into different framing designs and the dry finished product is sanded and painted to create a beautiful frame, all “Made by Hand” in their workshop. The Lucas family is also exploring the safe disposal of sheetglass and mirrors. As sheetglass is not recycled in South Africa, they are investigating buying a glass crusher. Mirror has metal at the back so it also cannot be recycled and currently goes into landfill.
Gwen Coetzee is a buyer for the Bookshop of the Kogelberg Branch of the Botanical Society in Harold Porter Gardens. The shop was started in 2019 mainly to help fund the costs of equipment for the Rooi Els, Pringle Bay and Betty’s Bay Hackers. Chainsaws are expensive and spare parts, repairs and petrol costs also need to be covered.
The ethos for the craft items in the shop is to “buy local” as opposed to imported items from e.g China or India and for the craft items to preferably be made from recyclable scrap materials or resources.
Local quilters make Morsbags from leftover materials as an alternative to plastic shopping bags. These are available to purchase at the shop and the quilters also give them away at shopping centres. Dish covers for food protection are also sold. They are locally made from off-cut fabrics to replace the ubiquitous plastic cling wrap- and beeswax covers.
A wide range of second-hand books are available including nature books, collectors’ items (especially South African) and children’s books.
Text: Barbara Jenman and Carol Clark
Photos: Carol Clark
PART TWO will cover organic foods, tires, food