From left, Sea Cleaners Trust founding trustee Hayden Smith, Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell, Sea Cleaners Trust Bay of Plenty skipper Josh Malmo and deckhand Tayla Hopkins at Lake Rotorua. Photo / Megan Wilson
From left, Sea Cleaners Trust founding trustee Hayden Smith, Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell, Sea Cleaners Trust Bay of Plenty skipper Josh Malmo and deckhand Tayla Hopkins at Lake Rotorua. Photo / Megan Wilson
About 10,000 litres of rubbish – mostly single-use plastics – has been pulled from Rotorua waterways in three months, a national charity says.
Sea Cleaners Trust is a not-for-profit that launched its operations in the Bay of Plenty in November 2024 with a mission of removing rubbish from the region’swaterways.
It has been operating nationally since 2002.
Founding trustee Hayden Smith said its Bay of Plenty boat came to Rotorua “probably once or twice a month”.
Single-use plastics were the most common items collected.
When Smith met the Rotorua Daily Post at the Rotorua lakefront boat ramp on Wednesday, he said about 6000 litres of rubbish was collected from the Waiotapu Stream and surrounding areas that morning.
On average, the crew was pulling up 2000 litres of rubbish a day.
“Every bag represents 50 litres. Every litre, on average, there’s 10 pieces of trash … it’s just general waste of every description.”
The trust’s latest quarterly report showed its Bay of Plenty boat had collected 134,000 litres of rubbish from mid-August to mid-November.
This included 10,000 litres in five visits to Rotorua, and 1800 litres from one visit to Lake Rotomā.
The boat also covered Tauranga, Whakatāne, Whangamatā and Ōpōtiki, the report showed.
“To be honest, what we’re picking up has come off a lot of the stormwater networks through all of the different various cities … we are the downstream infrastructure team that helps with that space, I guess,” Smith said.
“We know that we’re really providing infrastructure to support cities with their waste and their stormwater footprints …”
One of the biggest challenges was creating a behaviour change and getting people to understand there was a problem.
“You look out here [Lake Rotorua] and it looks beautiful. It’s glassy water … everything about it looks perfect. But if you actually stop and look under a little bit or around the edges and the fringes and in the stream banks, that’s where we’re finding so much debris.”
An estimated 6000 litres of rubbish was collected by Sea Cleaners from the Waiotapu Stream and surrounding areas on February 25. Photo / Megan Wilson
Smith said rubbish was often “unseen” and “out of mind”.
“It’s literally downstream from everywhere where we’re working. We’re going into a lot of places [where] people are not seeing it as a problem …
“It’s about education and awareness as much as about doing what we’re doing too.”
He said the trust was establishing a “recycling alliance”.
“That alliance is providing opportunities for many recycling initiatives to plug into and provide outlets for waste to be … repurposed into new products.”
For example, Future Post was making farming and fence posts out of plastic waste, and Nilo was turning plastic products into an industrial glue.
The trust’s work is funded through grants, including one from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, sponsorships and public donations.
Smith said the trust was seeking volunteers. Those interested can contact the trust via its website.
Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell said the Bay of Plenty Mayoral Forum learned during a Sea Cleaners presentation about the level of service it provided before it was established in the Bay.
She said the Rotorua community wanted its coastal areas, lakes, and rivers to be clean.
“Unfortunately, there’s a significant amount of either dumping or historical rubbish that has ended up in our waterways.
“We’re always very proud of being able to swim in and be a top destination for visitors due to our lake water quality, and that’s something we can’t be complacent with.
“So, we’re just incredibly grateful for Sea Cleaners and their contribution in Rotorua as well.”
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.
