Cape Town - After setting a world record for the longest beach clean up of 27 hours, environmental activist Zoe Prinsloo, 21, is back at it again and will be embarking on a coast-to-coast beach clean up this year covering the coastline of South Africa.
Prinsloo founded her non-profit company Save a Fishie at the age of 16 and has been conducting regular clean-ups across beaches in Cape Town for more than five years.
She has received numerous accolades, including being selected to attend the UN Youth Climate Summit in New York City in September 2019, after demonstrating commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
She was named one of the Top 100 African Youth Conservation Leaders of 2021.
Last year, they cleaned 111 beaches in 71 days, removing 3.6 tons of waste, which gets recycled.
“We will be using the insight we gained in 2023 and go back to those beaches we found need a little more attention by getting more schools and communities involved,” she said.
“We will be doing the clean up in winter, although it is rainy weather in Cape Town, up the coast and inland it is their dry season.
“We completed the full 27 hours in December and had amazing support. We got a good amount of litter in those 27 hours and the beach was clean, which is very important.”
Save a Fishie will be having their first beach clean up for the year this Saturday at Milnerton Lagoon. The public is invited to join at 9.30am with the meet-up point being Wang Thai.
“It will be a lot harder picking up during the festive season but it looks horrible. Although there might be a lot of people on Saturday, I actually prefer if the beach is busy because then we get to clean up in their presence and spread awareness and hopefully some of the beachgoers join us and hopefully upcycle whatever we get.”
