Cape Town - "I've heard about these surfers hundreds of kilometres from the ocean and I've decided I just have to meet them," says big wave surfer Frank Solomon at the start of the thought-provoking new documentary titled, Street Surfers. Together with Corona and Parley for the Oceans, Frank went looking for a group of men in Jozi who scour the streets for recyclables that would otherwise end up in our oceans.
Not only are they making a living for themselves, but they are also the overlooked heroes of recycling, contributing up to 90% of the country's recycling efforts.The scourge of ocean plastic begins in the cities, flowing down rivers and lakes ending up in the ocean. These men on their carts are as fit as athletes as they cover over 50km a day in their mission to collect plastic waste from the streets.
In the documentary Frank meets Thabo Mouti and Mokete Mokete, two men who are part of an estimated 100 000 waste-pickers in South Africa, according to GroundUp.
WATCH THE FILM HERE:
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Compiled by Herman Eloff.