Former Ballito surfer makes waves with her Mermaids' Tear Catcher

A former South African woman, Clare Swithenbank-Bowman, has claimed two international Stevie Awards for Women in Business for her environmentally conscious campaigns.

A former Ballito resident, Swithenbank-Bowman, who now lives in the US, is the founder of the non-profit organisation (NPO) Litter4Tokens. She won the award in recognition of her contribution to empower, feed and educate communities on conservation.

“It is truly an honour to be a recipient of such prestigious awards,” said Clare, who took home the silver awards for the categories “Woman of the Year — Government or Non-Profit” and “Female Innovator of the Year — Government or Non-Profit” for her innovative Mermaid Tear Catchers (MTC).

The catchers, which resemble a frisbee, were designed to ferret nurdles — harmful microplastics — from the ocean and beaches.

The Stevie Awards, considered the world’s premier business awards, were introduced in 2002 to recognise the accomplishments and contributions of companies and business people worldwide. The virtual ceremony was held last week.

The former surfer says that she came up with the Litter4Tokens concept back in 2005, inspired to do something about high unemployment and littering of rivers.

“Litter4tokens creates the circular economy, and we are working tirelessly for funding to keep our token shops full, as we can’t keep up with all the bags of litter the communities are bringing in,” she said.

Since its inception, Litter4Tokens has prevented more than 528,000 bags of litter from reaching the ocean.

“Microplastics are a growing concern because of the disruptive affect on marine ecosystems, as well as the harm to humans as they work their way into our food,” she said.

The organisation's focus is now on removing  nurdles, a base plastic material (also referred to as “mermaids' tears”) melted down to create plastic products.

According to Swithenbank-Bowman, illegal dumping is a huge problem for eThekwini, which has many recorded incidents of nurdles being dumped into rivers. She said there was a recent nurdle spill off the coast of Plettenberg Bay in October.

“These are the equivalent to a large oil spill and they’re absolutely devastating our ecosystem,” she said.

Swithenbank-Bowman explained that nurdles make their way into the food chain when fish and other filter-feeding marine creatures mistake them for eggs and mini jellyfish.

“This concern is further compounded by the discovery that nurdles follow the same ocean currents as turtles. We really need to get on top of this plastic crisis now - the ocean is literally going to choke,” she added.

The organisation is  researching legal avenues that will classify the transportation of nurdles as “hazardous”, the result of which will ensure proper containment if a spill does occur, preventing nurdles from spreading throughout the ocean.

Swithenbank-Bowman lives with her husband and three children in San Francisco, where she continues to run Litter4Tokens with the help of a team in SA.

The former KwaZulu-Natal surfer and rescue diver has partnered with a US-based organisation to sell MTCs to US-based communities to clean plastic on the beaches.

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