The Two Oceans Aquarium is taking its Trash Bash beach cleanup to Monwabisi Beach on International Coastal Cleanup Day, on the Saturday 16 September. Bring your family, buckets, and ALL of your energy.
With so much to celebrate, we are ramping up the Trash Bash activities with Captain Fanplastic, the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation Oceans in Motion Outreach and John Dory’s joining forces. Captain Fanplastic will present some fun, interactive children’s activities, and the Oceans in Motion mobile aquarium will wow children with rockpool biodiversity.
Trash Bash events are a great chance to spend time with friends and family, breathe in the fresh air, and have fun while doing something positive for the environment. All Trash Bashers leave feeling fulfilled, informed, and more proactive.
“This will be the Trash Bash of all Trash Bashes! My favourite thing about Trash Bash is the simplicity of it – the fact that a beach cleanup is so easy to accomplish and yet so effective. Spending the morning on the beach with my loved ones while giving back to our ocean and contributing to its well-being makes this an impossible to miss experience.” – Laura du Toit, Two Oceans Aquarium staff member.
Event details:
- Date: Saturday, 16 September 2023
- Time: 09h00 to 11h00
- Location: Monwabisi, off Baden Powell Drive (keep an eye out for the Two Oceans Aquarium banners)
- What to bring: Weather-appropriate clothing, water (in a reusable bottle), reusable gloves (like the ones you use for gardening or doing dishes), and your enthusiasm.
- Install: Add the Marine Debris Tracker app (iOS | Android) to log the litter you collect (join The Beach Co-op’s list).
We are excited to announce that Captain Fanplastic is bringing their super enthusiastic team to educate our young participants with fun activities, including story telling from their newly published book. Don’t miss out on the chance to join Captain Fanplastic and his trusted turtle friend Fin, as they go on a quest across the ocean to discover what is making Fin sick. On their adventure they meet Wanda the Whale and Seagull Steve who give them the answers they need, just before the unexpected happens….. Come to Trash Bash to find out what happens!
We’ll also be joined by our Oceans in Motion educator, Thabo Sabeko. The Oceans in Motion mobile aquarium has been a steady feature on Cape Town’s roads for years. Easily recognisable with its colourful artwork and solar panels on the roof, this van carries a one-of-a-kind life support system that allows us to bring living ocean animal ambassadors to wherever you are.
Kids will be able to interact with Thabo and his carefully cared for animals who make up the Oceans in Motion team.
John Dory’s Zero Waste Initiative has come onboard to keep the ocean loving trash bashers fuelled up with refreshments for the mornings activities.
Win
Make sure you stay until the end and stand a chance to win incredible prizes at our on-site lucky draw! There will be prizes from the Two Oceans Aquarium and their partners on the day.
What is Trash Bash?
The Two Oceans Aquarium Trash Bash aims to provide more opportunities for people who are enthusiastic, to take part in beach cleanups around Cape Town on a regular basis. Since 2018, the Aquarium’s Trash Bash campaign has visited many of Cape Town’s beaches and has had thousands of volunteers take part in the cleanup, removing litter from the beach and recording the items found. Trash Bash uses the Dirty Dozen methodology which focuses on 12 items that are often found littering our cities beaches. These collected items, such as plastic bags, bottles, straws and sweet wrappers, are recorded for the purpose of providing data used in a scientific study on causes and impacts of plastics in the ocean.
At the Trash Bash events, participants are divided into working teams where one person is assigned the role of scribe (using the downloaded app on their phone) recording all of the items that are collected, while the other members of the team are responsible for picking up and identifying the trash.
“Beach cleanups are vital as they prevent plastic and other trash from being deposited into the ocean and beyond our shores. Cleaning a beach is one of many easy and fun ways of contributing to our responsibility for ensuring a healthy natural environment, while providing data for scientific studies. It is also an opportunity to connect with nature,” said Helen Lockhart, Conservation & Sustainability Manager for the Two Oceans Aquarium.
Come and join the Aquarium team in connecting, helping the environment, and creating awareness around plastic pollution in our marine environment.
Preventing plastic pollution on our beaches:
The fight for a healthy ocean reaches beyond a single Trash Bash event, it is a daily endeavor we encourage our ocean loving community to take on. A first defense against plastic pollution in our oceans is to make more conscious decisions around our everyday plastic use. Some easy to implement suggestions are to buy fresh rather than prepacked fruit and vegetables, to pass on the balloons on your up-coming birthday party and opt for alternatives such as flags or bunting, refuse a straw for your drink or a lid for your takeaway coffee, and finally say no to single-use plastic bags.
For more information about the cleanup on 16 September 2023, please visit or our facebook page https://www.aquarium.co.za/news/trash-bash-16-september-2023
