The Noordhoek community have contributed 1000 EcoBricks to build a memorial bench in memory of Pete de Bruin who lost his cancer battle.
Noordhoek, South Africa (24 August 2020) – It is common practice to place a bench in memory of a loved one, in a spot they loved. The community of Noordhoek came together to do this for Pete de Bruin after he lost his battle to cancer.
Pete was a well-loved member of his community. He battled an especially aggressive form of cancer, having been diagnosed just before the national lockdown.
Nicknamed Peachie, he managed the Food Barn Deli and Restaurant with his bestfriend chef Franck Dangereux, they were central to the management of the Noordhoek Farm Village too. Community members commented that he was larger than life. They decided to honour Pete with a memorial bench made from EcoBricks.
“The community fiercely miss his strong, joyful, larger than life presence and bold personality. He was massively generous all round, and especially to our little project Project Noordhoeked, which is why I decided to motivate to build a memorial bench in his memory at the farm village.” – Karoline Hanks
Earlier this year, Earth & Co teamed up with Project Noordhoeked to build a beautiful community bench at the beach. The bench was made using 800 EcoBricks, meaning around 400kgs of unrecyclable waste had been stored away instead of ending up in landfill or the ocean.
Pete’s bench made use of over 500kgs of unrecyclable plastic. That equates to about 1000 bricks. The Red Herring centre, which is at the heart of the community, made it possible by donating each and every brick.
“The nice thing about this build, is we have made a little window (architects call it a ‘truth window’), which exposes some of the EBs. This helps people understand how it was made. The beauty of building with EBs, is that we know we are “sequestering” over 500kg of unrecyclable plastic waste and diverting it from the natural environment. Pete would have loved the concept, as he was always very supportive of the Project’s work in cleaning up the environment and trying to keep Noordhoek free of plastic!”
The bench has been placed in a spot that will be surrounded by an accompanying memorial garden. The garden is the next step in this incredibly special story. Pete’s bench has been placed at the Noordhoek Farm Village.
“His wife Kim, and son Daniel helped me paint the bench, and while we worked, we laughed, chatted and remembered him. We just know he was smiling down on us”
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The Noordhoek community works hard to keep their beaches clean and even have a beautiful whale that helps them collect the contents for their varied ecobrick projects.
So if you ever find yourself in Noordhoek and near Pete’s bench, take a moment to honour his memory and the love his community had for him and the cause of saving our beautiful oceans from plastic pollution.
Take a look at some of the images of the bench build below.
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