Beach Busters: Parking tickets a nightmare for the coast

Articles of rubbish removed during a beach clean up by sustainable coastlines include parking and registration tickets. Photo / Janna Dixon

The Herald on Sunday is campaigning to get all of New Zealand out on the beaches this summer, keeping them clean for our kids and our grandkids. Starting on Sunday 29 January at Orewa before the Summer Sunday festival, we'll be out with our rubbish bags - and we want you and your family to join us.

Recently 90 parking tickets or car registration dockets were picked up by volunteers cleaning up Rangitoto island.

We traced several of them back to their Auckland owners.

Sales rep Oliver Crisford, from Mount Eden, was astonished when a parking ticket issued in the CBD for his car in March last year was among them.

"I don't remember getting that ticket and I assume it blew off my windscreen," he said.

An infringement notice from December 2009 and issued in Grey Lynn to a ute registered to Auckland Council also showed up.

"We use a water resistant paper for infringement notices because previous paper-based ticket rolls melted in the rain and ended up being illegible mush," a spokesman for Auckland Transport said.

Alexis Palacio, 19, from the North Shore, was amazed that a registration docket issued to his car in October, 2004, turned up on Rangitoto.

"I wasn't even old enough to drive then so I assume I chucked it away when I bought the car at the start of 2010."

Join the Herald on Sunday and Sustainable Coastlines on the beaches this summer. The next clean-up is on Sunday 29 January before the Summer Sunday festival along the Matakana and Orewa coast.

Make sure you're counted! You can register your support or participation through nzherald.co.nz or at facebook.com/sustainablecoastlines

Win a camera every week

Take a photo of your friends or family cleaning up your favourite beach and go in the draw to win a Sony Cyber-shot TX10, valued at $649.95. With an Underwater Sweep Panorama function and 16.2 Mega Pixels you'll be able to take stunning underwater photos, as well as crystal clear shots on land. We have one camera to give away every week for the next 10 weeks to the person who takes the best photo, as judged by Herald on Sunday illustrations editor Chris Marriner. Five runners-up will each receive a copy of the book Beached As - New Zealand Beaches Then and Now by Craig Levers.

GRAND PRIZE

At the end of our Beach Busters campaign, the overall winner will receive a grand prize package comprising:

* a Sony Tablet S valued at $749.95

* a dive, snorkel or sightseeing trip for two to the Poor Knights Marine Reserve courtesy of Dive! Tutukaka

* $400 worth of clothing from surf label Sitka.

Entries close each week at Friday noon, and the winning photo will be printed each Sunday. So get snapping, and email your best shot as a JPEG to pictures@hos.co.nz with 'Beach Busters' in the subject line. Make sure you include your name, address and daytime phone number. Include a caption giving the place and full names of the people in the photo.

Please see terms and conditions at www.nzherald.co.nz/HOScompetitions. APN New Zealand reserves the right to store electronically any pictures entered in the competition and to use the images in any of its publications.