Business leaders remove 8kg of rubbish from Manly Cove Beach during the 2023 Take 3 CEO Clean Up

On the morning of Friday 22 September 2023, Take 3 for the Sea held its annual Sydney CEO Clean-Up event at Manly Cove Beach. The event saw over 70 CEOs and business leaders swapping offices and boardrooms for a morning of education and action.  

The group collected an impressive 8kg of litter from what, at first glance, appeared to be an already clean beach. It goes to show that even beaches that appear to be free of rubbish can contain large amounts of waste, buried in the sand or floating along the waterline.  

In total, the business leaders collected an impressive 6,376 littered items. The most prominent and reoccurring items found were pieces of hard plastic, with an astonishing 2,585 plastic remnants collected. We are always surprised by the variety of items that end up on our beaches, and this clean-up was no different. Although three quarters of the items consisted of plastic remnants, polystyrene and plastic packaging we also found numerous sushi soy fish containers, tile spacers, cigarette butts, 10 meters of fishing line, clothing, and toothbrushes. Everything collected from the beach was disposed of appropriately, either destined for recycling or landfill.

This year’s Take 3 CEO Clean-up was deemed a huge success. It was a day when Sydney’s business leaders demonstrated their commitment to a cleaner, healthier environment, setting a powerful example for us all. It was a day when Manly Cove Beach’s natural beauty was restored, and a vital message was sent out to the world: Together, we can make a significant difference in safeguarding our planet’s precious ecosystems. 

Take 3 would like to extend a big thank you to Norwegian Cruise Lines, official supporter of the Take 3 CEO Clean Up. Ben Angell, VP & Managing Director of NCL APAC told us, “Reducing plastic pollution is a key goal of NCL’s Sail and Sustain program, and it was an honour to join with other business leaders and travel industry colleagues at Take 3 for the Sea’s annual CEO Beach Cleanup in Manly, which was a terrific opportunity to demonstrate how simple it is for individuals to make a meaningful difference to prevent plastic pollution entering our oceans and waterways – not just at special events, but every day.” 

Download the full report here.