Raglan’s recent Maui Dolphin Day was a huge success, with many different organisations collaborating to raise awareness and communicate the issues that affect these rare dolphins and the greater environment.

Our Education Station provided a central hub for organisations to engage with people from the community and showcase educational material and films.

Twenty-five volunteers from the local community were involved with the coastal clean-up as part of the big day, including a large group from law firm James and Wells Intellectual Property (JAWS).

The clean-up was based in Ruapuke, and in an hour and a half the team managed to remove nearly 250 litres of rubbish from the coastline.

An audit of the rubbish found over 450 individual pieces of small unidentified plastics removed. Other main offenders were fishing related debris such as fishing line, bait bags, rope and strapping bands, as well as the usual offenders such as food wrappers, plastic bags and polystyrene.

“Raglan is a community where people really care about their environment, this combined with the hard work of organisations such as Xtreme Waste, has a huge impact on the amount of waste making its way into the marine environment.

“This was evidenced by the comparatively low amounts of locally sourced marine debris we collected during the clean-up,” said Chris Cochrane, Sustainable Coastlines event manager.

Cochrane highlighted that the majority of items found on the coast in Raglan are the small photodegraded plastics which wash up from a wide variety of sources. “You find them along the high tide line in disturbingly large numbers. They’re difficult to spot initially, but once you know to look for them, they’re everywhere” he says.

The festival ended with the screening of a feature film in the Education Station Minds in the Water produced by surfer and eco-warrior Dave Rastavitch, a fitting close for a fantastic day.