World Oceans Day is celebrated every year on June 8th.  World Oceans Day has been celebrated unofficially since its’ original proposal in 1992, by Canada’s International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) and the Ocean Institute of Canada (OIC) at the Earth Summit – UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In celebration of World Ocean/ Environment Day, Seaboard got volunteers together to assist with the project, “Beach Clean-up,” which involved cleaning up Treasure Beach on the Bluff. This was an event arranged by WESSA (the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa). WESSA is a South African environmental organization. WESSA aims to initiate and support high-impact environmental and conservation projects to promote participation in caring for the Earth.

On Thursday and Friday, 37 Seaboard staff members graciously volunteered to assist in cleaning up Treasure Beach.

Volunteers split into two groups, with one going on Thursday and the other on Friday armed with gloves and bags. The volunteers proceeded to the beach and started collecting garbage. The garbage collected, included plastic lids/ bottles, bottle caps, polystyrene, sweet sticks/wrappers, paper, glass, chip packets and materials.

When we think about the current state of our oceans with pollution having an immense impact and being a massive problem on a global scale. Overall, it was uplifting to see a company, a team, get involved and assist in preserving our environment.

From June 4-8th, approximately four metric tons of garbage was collected and disposed of on the beaches. Unbelievable when you realize that all of this came from just one beach!