Waihī Beach new cleaning pods a clean sweep

The Community Beach Clean Pods are helping to keep beaches clean.

The new Comunity Beach Clean Pods in Waihī Beach are being used daily.

Last month Sustainable Waihī Beach launched the new system to help keep local beaches and bays litter-free.

The idea evolved after Sustainable Waihī Beach’s beach cleans turned up shocking results — more than 112kg of rubbish was removed at Anzac Bay and the North End. The idea is for the public to have an easy-to-use system where they can independently clean their beach areas.

The system of pods is installed at North End (two), Brighton Reserve, Tuna Ave and Anzac Bay. They are designed to hold two 15-litre buckets positioned near public rubbish bins.

Members of the public are encouraged to collect a bucket and undertake an independent beach clean, pop the rubbish into the adjacent bin and the bucket back into the pod.

“The design is simple but extremely effective,” says Sustainable Waihī Beach co-founder Pippa Coombes. “ii evokes an environmental consciousness with visitors to the beach.”

Since the launch, the buckets have been used daily.

“The feedback has been incredible with people sharing posts of how much litter they have collected and where. Sustainable Waihī Beach really hopes to see a difference in their targeted beach cleans which will give them data to prove or disprove that the pods have an impact on litter.” The targeted beach cleans are undertaken every three months through the Litter Citizen Scientist programme in collaboration with Waihī Beach School.

Damian Horn, a newbie to Waihī Beach, was enthusiastic about the system after coming across them on a beach walk.

“I absolutely love the new beach clean pod with the rubbish buckets set up at the Tuna Ave beach access. Having walked this beach pretty much daily for the past six months, it was rare I’d see any rubbish. But armed with the bucket and actively looking out for trash, I managed to fill a bucket (15 litres) today in less than 30 minutes.’’

INFO: Give the pods a go, take a snap and tag yourself in @sustainablewaihibeach to win spot prizes.