On Saturday May 6, 2017 Ceres Organics staff, whanau and friends joined Sustainable Coastlines at Tahuna Torea Nature Reserve in Eastern Auckland for a morning of giving goodness back to our coast.

Tahuna Torea is a picturesque sandspit and intertidal flat jutting out into the Tamaki Esturay from Glen Innes, named after the Oystercatcher (Torea), which can often be found there. The Tamaki Estuary is one of New Zealand’s most utilised waterways, with a large amount of industry in its upper reaches and numerous stormwater outlets along its banks. These stormwater outlets bring rubbish from our streets everytime it rains and this rubbish easily gets caught by the Tahuna Torea sandspit on incoming and outgoing tides.

40 willing volunteers, from the very young to the less young, joined us on the day and contributed a tremendous effort during a beautiful morning in nature. After introductions and safety briefing the team headed out for the mahi. Hopes were particularly high amongst the young ones, who were set for the scavenger hunt laid out in anticipation earlier that morning by committed Ceres staff.

In total, we collected over 4,600 pieces of rubbish, with the usual culprits – bottle caps and lids, food wrappers and small pieces of polystyrene – making up a large proportion of this. Other pieces of note were a couple of mooring buoys, half a mussel farm buoy and a bunch of odd, old toys.

We’d like to send out a huge thanks to the Ceres team for their efforts – without caring organisations such as Ceres Organics we wouldn’t be able to continue the work that we do. Special mentions must go to Lynley Tran and Ben Ng for their fantastic organisation leading up to and on the day. Of course, we can’t wait to get out again with the crew and continue what we’ve started.

For a full breakdown of the day’s results please click on the “Download Results” button above.