Sea Cleaners is coming

Sea Cleaners has removed more than 5 million litres of rubbish from New Zealand waters - and soon it will be the Far North's turn. Photo / Supplied

In the last 15 years Sea Cleaners has co-ordinated 120,000 volunteer hours, and has removed more than 5.1 million litres of rubbish from New Zealand's waters and coastline.

And now it's about to extend that effort to the Far North.

Hayden Smith, 2017 New Zealand Local Hero of the Year, said funding had been obtained from the Ministry for Youth Development, Work and Income, the Northland Regional Council and the Chisholm Whitney Family Trust, with more possibly coming from Far North Holdings, for a 12-month programme involving a fulltime boat crew of two and, hopefully, a small army of volunteers.

The programme would operate five days a week throughout the region, rotating between Dargaville, Whangarei, the Bay of Islands, Kaikohe and Kaitaia.

"We will be doing this for 12 months, potentially longer," Mr Smith said, "but at the moment we are looking for community buy-in. We have the full support of Far North mayor John Carter, so that's a good start."

Sea Cleaners currently had three boats working fulltime, and had the funding to put seven more on the water by 2020.

"The amount of rubbish we've removed from the environment over the last 15 years is just staggering," Mr Smith said, adding the key to protecting the marine environment was encouraging people to change their habits on land.

"It's like vacuuming - you have to keep doing it over and over. At the end of the day we have to reduce our use of plastic, starting with plastic bags.

"We encourage people to pick up one piece of trash each day. Just one piece, whether it be from a road, a park, a beach, or right outside their house.

If people do that they are helping to reduce the rubbish that goes into the sea, and they are less likely to drop rubbish themselves."

The Northland programme will launch in Whangarei on September 12.