Cape2Rio2020 have aligned with Clean Regattas / Sailors for the Seas and support any clean seas action. Team Umoya have an ocean conservation organisation which focuses on building awareness of reducing the usage of single use plastics.
THE INITIATIVE: Save Our Soles
https://www.saveoursoles.co.za/ or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/saveoursolesCT
The aim is to challenge people within SA to stop using plastic single-use shopping bags altogether and to think about how to reduce their usage in general.
A SOLUTION:
Team Umoya are challenging as many competitors as possible on the C2R race to make eco bricks from their plastic waste.
There are many good reasons from a sailor’s perspective to do this, such as:
– it reduces pollution in the ocean we all love and also in landfills
– it reduces the size of the waste we have to carry on our boats for ~3 weeks as eco bricks shrink plastic waste by 3-5 times.
– it creates a second use for 2 litre or 5 litre water bottles after the water has been consumed. Again using less space on the boat and these can easily be tucked in to corners and small spaces around the boat.
– lastly, it also creates a use for eco bricks to help build new structures in a eco-friendlier and low cost way.
THE PROBLEM:
Although eco-bricks have been widely introduced in South Africa, South America has been a bit slow on the uptake of realizing the benefits of eco-bricks. Research into this shows that only Argentina & Colombia have initiatives that embrace the use of eco-bricks in construction.
