Proud Rotorua man brings people together to clean up the city

Neville Raethel has started the Let's Clean Rotorua Facebook page and planned clean-ups. Photo/Supplied

A Rotorua man is encouraging the community to get involved in cleaning up rubbish to help make the city spick and span.

Let's Clean Rotorua founder Neville Raethel said he started thinking in October about doing something to address the issue of rubbish.

He then set up the Facebook page, which was about trying to encourage people to get out and clean Rotorua.

So, every fine Saturday this summer, between 10am and 12pm, people are able to join him for a planned clean, he said.

Raethel said if people could not make it to the planned clean-ups they were encouraged to do a clean-up somewhere closer to home, such as outside their property or at a nearby park.

"It's about getting people enthusiastic about cleaning, and getting their children out there so they can see this is a problem."

He said he had been doing clean-ups himself for about three years.

His inspiration was fellow local Kiri Danielle, who also does it.

Raethel said by the week before Christmas the clean-ups had covered 3km of lakefront in Ngongotaha, with the help of Maori wardens.

"I'm actually quite surprised at the number of people starting to get involved in it."

More than 200 people had liked the Facebook page.

He said he had one family who got involved every week.

"It's that initiative I want people to see. It's not the adults wanting to go and do it, it's the children which is really cool."

He said his first focus was to clean up Lake Rotorua because, being of Te Arawa descent, it was a part of him and, "should be part of everybody in Rotorua".

Items often found include nappies, glass and plastic bottles, tyres and billboard signage.

Altogether he had found nearly 250 golf balls in the lake, which did not biodegrade.

Raethel said Let's Clean Rotorua had been given 25 pairs of gloves, rubbish bags, buckets, a boat to go around the lakes and lifejackets.

The next planned clean-up is todayon the streams and parks around Edmund Rd, starting at 10am and meeting in front of the Edmund Rd Four Square.

For more information visit the Let's Clean Rotorua Facebook page.