KNYSNA NEWSFLASH - With much of the vegetation burnt clean due to the fires it is becoming apparent how much rubbish has been dumped, thrown out or simply left everywhere close to human habitation, says Anel de Bruin from the Knysna Wildlife Fund.
"Take a drive up to Brenton or even Rheenendal, and you will notice anything from broken bottles to empty cigarette packets lying next to the road," she says.
She relates that in an effort to clean up the rubbish, various community members in the Brenton area have arranged clean-up events, "but the sad thing is you would clean an area and a week later there would be new plastic and glass bottles, polystyrene containers and plastic packets lying everywhere".
On 9 September, one such clean-up was organised by the Knysna Wildlife Project (KWP), but the whole thing was inspired by "an incredible pensioner" from the Brenton area, Gill Hogg.
Every single day, says De Bruin, Hogg takes a small bag, walks down to the beach and sifts through the sand picking up small pieces of plastic.
She has witnessed many dead marine life on the beach, four seals, and six seabirds, among others.
There was even an instance where a Cape Cormorant was caught up in fish gut: she waved down a gentleman runner on the beach, used his T-shirt to grab the bird and bit the fish gut off with her own teeth.
Louw Claassens from the Knysna Basin Project informs the children from Knysna Primary School of the dangers plastic and other materials that end up in the ocean can cause.
Read more in Thursday's Knysna-Plett Herald, as well as online.
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