Johannesburg, 16 September 2026 – The Glass Recycling Company (TGRC) is joining the Deputy Minister of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), Hon. Narend Singh, as South Africa joins a global effort to tackle litter and protect its coastal and marine environments on International Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, 19 September 2026.
The initiative will bring together TGRC, Deputy Minister Singh, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Honorary Officers, Mangosuthu University of Technology and other participating organisations, alongside approximately 1,000 learners from 30 schools, at the Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
International Coastal Cleanup Day, organised globally by Ocean Conservancy, brings together millions of volunteers across more than 100 countries each year to remove litter from beaches, waterways and surrounding environments. South Africa has participated in the initiative for many years, contributing to a global effort to address marine and coastal litter.
For TGRC, joining forces with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and Deputy Minister Singh provides an opportunity to take the conversation beyond the clean-up itself and highlight the role that everyday recycling can play in preventing waste from entering the environment in the first place.
“International Coastal Cleanup Day is a powerful demonstration of what can happen when organisations, government, schools and communities come together around a shared environmental goal,” says Shabeer Jhetam, CEO of TGRC. “We are proud to partner with Deputy Minister Singh and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) on this important initiative, and to be part of an event that brings so many young South Africans into the conversation.”
“While a clean-up makes the impact of litter visible, it also raises an important question: what can we do to prevent that litter from reaching our environment in the first place? Recycling is one of the practical actions available to all of us. By separating recyclable materials and ensuring they enter the recycling value chain, we can reduce the amount of waste that ends up in our streets, rivers and waterways.”
TGRC believes that initiatives such as International Coastal Cleanup Day can help turn environmental awareness into everyday action. Clean-up activities address the immediate challenge of litter, while ongoing recycling habits can help prevent recyclable materials from becoming litter in the first place.
“Partnerships like this matter because lasting environmental change cannot rest on one organisation or one clean-up day,” Jhetam adds. “It requires all of us to play our part, from government and organisations to schools, businesses and households. The clean-up is an important starting point, but what we do with our waste every day is where we can make a lasting difference.”
Through its partnership with DFFE and participation in International Coastal Cleanup Day, TGRC aims to encourage South Africans to see recycling not as a once-off activity, but as an everyday action that can contribute to a cleaner environment.
