Whangārei students picking up other people's 'gross' rubbish

St Francis Xavier Catholic School teacher Deb Hepi took her classroom on a clean-up in the neighbourhood around their school

The future of the environment is in safe hands if the students of Room 22 at St Francis Xavier Catholic School in Whangārei are anything to go by.

The Year 5 and 6 students hit the streets around their school yesterday to pick up rubbish from the sides of the road.

They found cigarette butts, chip packets, glass bottles, fast food packaging, other pieces of plastic and a hubcap.

Ten-year-old Kate Stratton said it was terrible.

"It's gross," classmate Amelia Vun, 11, chimed in.

"People who drop it shouldn't drop it," Stratton declared.

"I'm wondering why people even drop it in the first place," Victoria Jamieson, 9, added.

Kate Stratton, 10 and Kara Gee, 9, with a hubcap found near Kensington Stadium.

The clean up started on Percy St, continued on to Western Hills Drive, then Kensington Ave where the students also covered Kensington Park, before turning on to Park Ave and then back to school.

They were armed with four large bags, a bucket for glass, gloves, rubbish grabbers and signs to wave at passing motorists.

Slogans included "no pollution join our revolution" and "be fantastic pick up plastic".

By the time they reached the Kensington Ave and the Western Hills Drive roundabout, their four large bags were all nearly full.

Their teacher Deb Hepi said they had found "far too much".

St Francis Xavier Catholic School teacher Deb Hepi took her classroom on a clean-up in the neighbourhood around their school

The community clean-up idea was a combination of things. Her class had been learning about te moana, the ocean, this term. Hepi had also signed the students up to the Student Volunteer Army, so they had to think of an action that would benefit their community.

First they wanted to do a beach clean-up, but after talking to EcoSolutions they decided to clean up their local environment instead.

The idea behind it was "to get the rubbish before it gets to the beach".

Hepi said the students were "quite horrified" to learn about the damage plastics do, especially to marine and other wildlife.