Sea Cleaners volunteers work hard to clean up Northland's coastline.
Sea Cleaners volunteers work hard to clean up Northland's coastline.
Plastic bottles, tyres and old fishing gear are still piling up on Northland shores with local crews collecting over 106,000 litres of litter in just three months.
Between February and May, thousands of Sea Cleaners volunteers hauled the litter from Northland’s coastline as part of a nationwide mission totackle marine pollution.
Sea Cleaners founding trustee, Captain Hayden Smith said the 106,000 this quarter for the Northland crew is balanced by last quarter being 148,000 collected. He said on average, each crew across the country collects 2000 litres of litter a day, 40,000 a month, 120,000 per quarter from our coasts.
“For each litre, on average, there are 10 pieces of litter. The highest concentration of rubbish in our waters is usually around population centres. For example, in Northland, the Hatea River is an area we frequently are cleaning up.”
He said the debris they collect is wide and varied and said they do their best to make reports to municipalities.
Sea Cleaners volunteers removed work hard to cleaning up Northland's coastline.
“All plastics can photo-degrade, breaking them up into microplastics. Therefore, our best chance against the microplastic sand we find, is to collect and dispose of the larger, whole pieces before they are broken up by sunlight, wind and wave action.”
He said compared to other regions in Northland, there is a consistent stream of support from the community, and they have had help from various schools like Kerikeri High School, Springbank School, Ngāti Manu and Whangarei Boys’, among others.
“We are always chasing funding to ensure security for our operations. We have received one month of funding every year from the regional council and the Far North District Council, which we are grateful for.”
As it stands, the group have another six months of funding secured but are constantly seeking support to reach their $300,000 a year costs to continue doing their work.
“It is my belief that there is not a single human alive on the planet that will ever see an ocean free of plastic. So, every action we can take now will help us. If you see something on the ground, stop and pick it up, and put it in a bin,” Smith said.
“Unfortunately, there is a real disconnect between people’s actions and on the land, and the effects those actions can have on our oceans.”
As skipper for the trust, Josh Malmo has seen it all and said the ocean still bears the brunt of careless waste.
“Over the past few months on the water, I’ve witnessed both the worst and best of our relationship with the environment. On one hand, I’ve come across deeply disappointing sights: old, makeshift rubbish tips eroded into the ocean, dumping along the water’s edge, and a general disregard for proper waste disposal. Day after day, I’m removing thousands of litres of rubbish from our marine environments, a constant reminder that there is still much work to be done.
“There’s still a long road ahead. We may be known globally as a ‘clean, green’ nation, but there is a gap between perception and reality. It’s our mission to close that gap — one clean-up, one conversation, and one community at a time.”
