Life on earth is symbiotic; each component within the ecosystem plays a significant role. The decline of the bee population and its effect on food systems is a timely reminder of just how interconnected everything really is. However, as urbanization, intensive farming and resource extraction increases, so we are witnessing the fragmentation of the environment even further. … [Read more...]
Make-a-Difference Week beach cleanup a great success
The 5 to 13 June 2021 was Make-a-Difference Week, a worldwide effort to reduce negative environmental impacts. The Cape Town Environmental Education Trust (CTEET) team kicked off the nine-day commitment with a beach cleanup from Sunrise Beach to Muizenberg on World Environment Day, which was also the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. There was … [Read more...]
Is the Liesbeek River valley under threat of ecocide?
World Environment Day is a day when we are supposed to encourage worldwide awareness and action to protect our environment. But some tenacious folks from Change spent it raising funds to go to the High Court to get our authorities to take environmental and heritage protections seriously. The City of Cape Town loves to praise its own record on the environment. Examples … [Read more...]
Protecting natural ecosystems with landfill technology
One of the greatest environmental challenges of our time, is the waste that we generate. When our waste is not recycled, repurposed, or treated, it can have devastating environmental impacts on the environment. For a country that relies heavily on its natural ecosystems and landscapes for our tourism sector, it is incredibly important that the South African waste management … [Read more...]
Business owner recognised for her recycling impact
Loretta Waterboer, the winner of the PETCO Awards Top Woman in Recycling, 2021 is a wonderful and passionate role model for female leadership in our industry, running her own business, LW Recycling and Trade, and partnering with the Mosselbank River Conservation Trust (MRCT) for a bigger impact in her community. When MRCT environmental officer Danielle Cronje started working … [Read more...]
World Environment Day calls for an end to nature’s destruction
One million plant and animal species risk extinction, largely due to human activities. These are issues the world cannot lose sight of even as we tackle the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis. The theme for World Environment Day, 5 June 2020, is biodiversity — a call to action to combat the accelerating species loss and degradation of the natural … [Read more...]
Lockdown gives dive operators time to rethink sustainability
The world is at a standstill to flatten the Covid-19 curve, a pause that has been especially devastating to the travel industry. But for some marine tourism operators in Indonesia and Malaysia, the lockdown has inspired new innovations. The picturesque Ceningan Divers Resort in Bali, Indonesia—though closed for guests since March 19—has set up an online education portal … [Read more...]
Partners to boost innovative recycling villages
World Environment Day saw the building of three new recycling villages and the upgrade of two more in KwaZulu-Natal. WILDLANDS recycling villages, which are at the forefront of recycling and the recycling circular economy in South Africa, are part of a well-established WILDTRUST programme. In celebration of World Environment Day, a day that encourages citizen-action to … [Read more...]
Bring Your Own Bag campaign aims to keep the seas trash free
Every year South Africans use approximately 8 billion plastic bags, and less than 1% are recycled. Most end up in landfills or the ocean. With the support of A Rocha “Christians in Conservation,” South African Churches have launched a campaign to reduce the use of plastic shopping bags. At the launch, Rethink The Bag campaign founder Hayley MacLellan shared stories of the … [Read more...]
Exploring alternative materials to reduce plastic pollution
In an effort to equip the world with the tools and knowledge to reduce plastic litter from ending up in our ocean, rivers, and lakes, UN Environment today published a report assessing the potential of replacing conventional plastics with alternative materials in certain applications. The ocean has increasingly become a repository for discarded plastics and microplastics, … [Read more...]
Wearing away the stone of climate change
We sometimes have very strange ways of imagining small island states and global warming, writes Dr Terry Brown, former Bishop of Malaita, Anglican Church of Melanesia (1996 to 2008) for World Environment Day. For example, we may think of the small island as a kind of oil rig, locked forever at a certain height from the bottom of the sea, being overwhelmed by the rising sea … [Read more...]
World Environment Day
World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated on June 05, 2014 and is a day that stimulates awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and public action. June 5 was the day that United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began in 1972. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was from 5 until 16 June 1972. It was established by the United … [Read more...]
Waste not want not this Youth Day
The PET Recycling Company (Pty) Ltd (PETCO) and the Paper Recycling Association of South Africa (PRASA) conducted training with the Wastewant Youth Recycling Co-Operative Limited today, in honour of Youth Day being celebrated across the country on 16 June 2013. The training forms a part of PETCO’s ongoing drive to empower communities and youth in the waste management and … [Read more...]
