Bikini Beach – immediately it brings to mind sun, sea, sand and of course the prestigious Blue Flag Beach status. This wonderful beach is now under threat because of pollution from the ocean and the beach itself.
We have to give credit to the two months (December and January) of the year the beach fully complied with the 31 mandatory criteria of being awarded Blue Flag status for years.
There are currently 47 Blue Flag beaches in South Africa and 5 121 Blue Flag beaches in 51 countries around the world. The Blue Flag award programme is truly an exceptional initiative in worldwide environmental protection, driven by the Blue Flag programme, established in France in 1985.
Of note is that our Bikini Beach is part of the short season Blue Flag beaches, where compliance testing is only conducted and required during December and January. It is the other months outside of the high season that is a concern . . .
We are a group of young future environmental scientists in Grade 6E2 at De Hoop Primary School conducting research for our Natural Science project. We wanted to do an observational study about the status of Bikini Beach as a Blue Flag beach outside of the peak season.
The findings of our investigation showed Bikini Beach failed on 10 points of the 31 mandatory requirements. The most notable and concerning finding of these was the ocean water quality: the E.Coli bacterial count was 510 cfu/100 mF and the required level is <250 cfu/100 mF.
This is more than double! Of course, it has to be taken account that we experienced a lot of rain with downflow from the rivers within the period that we conducted the study, and it is well known to affect these counts. Furthermore, there was a large amount of litter (and even a dead bird) present both on the beach and on the sidewalk.
The disabled toilet was locked and had broken windows and the disabled parking was blocked with a cement bin. These are just some of the points that has an effect on achieving Blue Flag beach status.
It leads to the question of why is the criteria only being chased in the short Blue Flag season and not all year round? Surely we have people in community and tourists who want to enjoy the same standards as Blue Flag beach season in all our seasons?
There is always hope to get the beach back to its original pristine summer Blue Flag condition, even out of season. The community and the local authority must come together to try find solutions to reduce contamination of our water and stop littering in the rivers and oceans. An awareness must be created that we are slowly destroying our oceans and beaches if we do not act urgently to stop this ongoing and worsening pollution.
We, as future young scientists, clearly see the need for further research and interventions to restore and protect our beautiful beaches for current and future generations.
We want to thank the following organisations and people for their assistance during our study: the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) and Morgan Griffith; BEM laboratories; City of Cape Town and Dr Hennie Kotze; Ward 84 councillor Norman McFarlane; Ward 100 councillor Sean Stacey; Taryn Flee of Gordon’s Bay Tourism; and De Hoop Primary School Grade 6E2 teacher Mrs Rentia Burger (our fabulous inspirational teacher).
