BekaertDeslee is on a mission. They assume the responsibility to help save our beautiful blue planet for future generations and they encourage their employees and their families around the globe to help create awareness and fight plastic.

This is why for several years now, BekaertDeslee has been participating in the Eneco Clean Beach Cup event. “We have called on our employees to pick up trash on the Belgian coast,” says Philip Ghekiere, BEKAERTDESLEE’s Marketing & Design Director. Colleagues in Australia and the USA did the same. Ghekiere sums up: “We want to help preserve our planet in ecological balance for future generations.” In 2019 they performed the clean-up with SEAQUAL INITITIATIVE, and the team wore sweaters they had made with “SEAQUAL™ Support ocean cleanup” on.

The Eneco Clean Beach Cup event has been held on the first Sunday of spring every year since 2010. They advocate for less plastic by performing a major beach cleanup in collaboration with all Belgian surf clubs and some municipalities in the Netherlands. Their mission is to inspire as many people as possible to choose a long-term vision for our oceans, and their objectives are to raise awareness about the plastic problem in our oceans and advocate for addressing the problem as close to the source as possible.

Mass production of plastic continues to increase rapidly, with no less than 5 to 14 million tons of plastic waste splashing into the sea each year, up to 444 kilograms per second. In the North Sea alone, each year 150 million plastic bags and other pieces of floating garbage and 20,000 tons of waste are added to our little sea. Cleaning up the sea is impossible, but 80 percent of the beach debris is washed up by the sea.

In 2019, the Eneco Clean Beach Cup event broke all records: there were 7,500 surfers and supporters, and the clean-up spread over a distance of 76.5 km. Altogether, they removed 11.5 tons of beach debris. By cleaning up the shoreline, the Eneco Clean Beach Cup shows the big problem and hopes to shake up everyone, consumers and policy makers.