Drone footage shows state of Durban beach due to single-use plastic
A Pietermaritzburg-based man has shot a video with the aim of inspiring change.
Rakesh Morar is no stranger to being featured on the East Coast Radio website. He shot some amazing drone footage of the Midmar dam overflowing.
His most recent addition to his portfolio of work (which he does for fun, we might add) is one with a strong message to the people of the East Coast.
Morar took to his Facebook page on Monday morning to share gripping drone footage showing the extent of damage to the Bluff beach in Durban due to single-use plastic.
The reason why many environmental activists have called for the ban of single-use plastic is that it takes a while for it to break down - like a long time. According to Onya Life, "Single-use plastic, whether from lunch wrap or bags, takes anywhere from 20 to 1,000 years to break down."
Rakesh shared the video to his Facebook page and captioned it: "WE ONLY HAVE ONE OCEAN! Look at what's in it. It's time to realize that we if we don't make a change now, we'll just keep choking our oceans. Marine life are becoming the ashtrays of our plastic debris. Education combined with action is our best solution to clean up our act for future generations. Let's become conscious of our plastic consumption & limit our use of Single Use Plastics."
We caught up with him to find out his reasons for shooting this type of video, which is different to what he has done before.
"It's not only showing pollution, but to create awareness about it. A beach clean-up is one thing, but we need to change our mindset. We need to be recycling more often," he said.
He added that after seeing the harm that this plastic is doing to our environment, he certainly will be making a change to his lifestyle.
"I want to cut out the use of one-time plastic. I will be starting by taking my own bags to my local supermarket, and even be conscious of choosing metal, steel, or glass as opposed to plastic. If everyone makes these small changes, the effects will be so large. We need to change our lifestyle and the way we use plastic," he said.
Rakesh's video was shot to inspire change, after all, it does start with us.
Check out the footage below: