The captain is not the only one to learn from the disaster. In 2013, former head of the Government Communications Security Bureau Simon Murdoch’s independent review into the Rena response made several recommendations. These included that Maritime New Zealand should review its national strategy regarding serious maritime incidents, create a new management structure and, ultimately, be better prepared in the future.

Maritime New Zealand deputy director of safety and response systems Nigel Clifford says the organisation worked hard on all of the recommendations and is now “more ready than we were before”.

New Zealand had also signed up to more compensation conventions, meaning the nation now has greater financial insurance should something similar happen again.

However, whether to sign up to the Nairobi Convention as suggested by Mikaere is not simple and is still being considered, he says.

Due to Rena’s owner’s insurers footing the $700m salvage bill, New Zealand taxpayers fared relatively well in the Rena fallout, he says.

“There are [ship] owners in the world who just walk away.”

Former Tauranga mayor Stuart Crosby admits getting emotional as he recalls watching black waves crashing onto an already blackened beach – a previously golden shoreline he grew up with.

"It was a sight I’ll never forget.”

Crosby also recalls the efforts of thousands of volunteers on their knees, dressed in white boiler suits, each picking up and sifting oil from sand.

“The community response has gone down in history of rewriting the manual in terms of clean up.”

Authorities involved included Tauranga City Council, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, local iwi, Maritime New Zealand and the Government - represented at the time by Prime Minister John Key, Transport Minister Steven Joyce and Environmental Minister Nick Smith.

However, it was not immediately clear which party had jurisdiction because New Zealand had not encountered a situation like that presented by the Rena grounding.

As black blobs of oil began washing ashore in the days after the grounding, it was local surfers and others frustrated by what they perceived as inaction by authorities, who started cleaning up before the army started rolling in.

Crosby admits: “It was a little shaky at the start because there were so many players involved” but overall, the different parties came together well and made the best situation they could from the disaster, he says.

Not everyone thought so.

Crosby speaks of continuous public meetings that, at times, “were quite testy” with people angry at what they perceived to be a lack of action, or with concerns about potential contaminants on board.

“That was hard because we were a player, not the player,” Crosby says.

Crosby refers to community groups that were set up and ongoing relationships with iwi.

A total of 31 containers are still buried at “significant depths” within Rena’s collapsed remains.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council principal regulatory advisor Eddie Grogan says diver surveys suggest none remain intact.

The containers had been harbouring metallurgical coke, furniture, bulk stock feed, scrap steel, pulp, ferro silicon, MDF board, empty containers, milk powder, copper clove and personal effects.

“Given that they have now been submerged for 10 years it is unlikely that there is very much if any material other than the copper clove now remaining,” Grogan says.

Of the 1368 containers Rena had been carrying, 1111 were recovered. The remaining 257 could not be salvaged because the vessel snapped in two during poor weather. Eventually some containers and their contents were recovered but could not be identified due to their “severely degraded state”.

Those 31 located beyond 30m deep were “deemed too dangerous to remove” or removal risked damaging the reef, Grogan says.

Among the Rena’s debris were bags of lotrene beads.

Grogan says the council still receives reports of 2-3mm beads washing ashore after storm events and these have been “a persistent problem” for a long time.

“However, given the beads are commonly noticed on the same beaches at the same locations during the winter season, it is more likely that the plastic beads have become exposed with beach erosion rather than washing ashore from the wreck itself.”