Malcolm Clark, Table View
It’s 6.30am on Sunday October 28, and I have just walked on the beach at the end of Blaauwberg Road, heading north towards Dolphin Beach.
I have never been so disgusted with the state of the beach as I have this morning. Plastic bottles, plastic food containers, KFC packets and boxes (at least these do self-destruct) littered the whole area with homeless people scavenging through the debris for the leftovers. The sea birds were having a field day as unpaid beach cleaners.
Is there no way that this can be policed and people fined for each piece of rubbish left behind. The fines could pay for the policing effort with officials being rewarded for the condition of their areas of responsibility.
I understand we are in the middle of a heatwave and people are flocking to the beaches, but it is a sad indictment of our populace that we get up, take our things and leave our rubbish. Where on earth did we learn that behaviour?
I believe that social graces and behaviour are learned at the mother’s knee, not at school. It is a reflection of the breakdown of our social structure that families will act in such an irresponsible way, setting the example
for the generation to come.
All of us need to be aware of the piece of the planet that we use and take care of it, and if we don’t, we need to be made to pay for its use in some way and not just by increasing our rates.
