Des Watson has spent the last two months cleaning beaches between Wellington and Whanganui. Photo / Mike Tweed
Des Watson has spent the last two months cleaning beaches between Wellington and Whanganui. Photo / Mike Tweed
Two years ago, Blenheim resident Des Watson received an inheritance after his father died - and now it's benefiting our coastline.
Instead of investing in a new car or property, Watson decided to put the money towards something entirely different - collecting rubbish from New Zealand's beaches.
This week heis in Whanganui, after travelling up the west coast of the North Island picking up coastal rubbish and fighting against "the plastic epidemic".
"Close to 10 years ago I saw an environmental post on Facebook that sort of inspired me and I went out and picked up a couple of bags of rubbish off Greymouth beach," Watson said.
"For the last four years I lived at Rarangi Beach in Blenheim, and my New Year's resolution was to go out on the beach every day and try to fill a bag with rubbish, which I stashed in a pile at my house.
"After a month I looked at it and thought 'holy sh**', there was just so much, and that was just from one little part of coastline."
Watson said he had since collected about 15 tonnes of rubbish from South Island beaches, and was now on his second North Island cleaning trip.
"It's been pretty difficult getting local councils on board to dispose of the rubbish I've collected and, while some of them have been good, I haven't had much luck up north yet.
"I would love it if councils could come in and pay for the rubbish themselves, because I've already given my time and my body to picking it all up.
"My back and my knees are killing me, and I must have bent over hundreds of thousands of times since I've been doing this."
Whanganui local Zane Hair, a friend of Watson, said Watson had built a trailer with a small sleeping compartment on the front of it, with the rest of it being filled with collected rubbish.
Rubbish collected by Des Watson and Zane Hair over a 200-metre stretch close to the Whanganui River mouth. Photo / Zane Hair
"I always tell him that he needs to have a bit of fun and a bit of R'n'R along the way," Hair said.
"Des will be coming up to Upokongaro with me for a couple of days, and we'll head up the River Rd.
"After we've done that and covered all of Castlecliff Beach, he'll head off to Kai Iwi for a while, then on to Waitotara Beach, then Waverley.
"Des doesn't do big leaps, and it's taken him two months to get from Wellington to here."
Beyond trying to get people to stop littering and fly-tipping, Watson said his main message was that the production of certain plastic products to be stopped altogether.
"I'm not trying to shame people out, but I'm really concerned with the state of our planet for future generations.
"Things like milk bottles should be banned, they need to go, and all those 'two-dollar shop' type places are just filled with plastic crap from China which is broken in five minutes.
"We need to stop this whole out-of-sight, out-of-mind way of thinking because, even if stuff is buried in a landfill, it isn't just going to magically go away."
To follow Des Watson's journey, go to www.facebook.com/kiwiscleanaotearoa
To donate to his cause, go to https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/kiwis-clean-aotearoa
