On Sunday May 19th more than 40 staff and friends of Kiwirail met at the Interislander terminal to give some love to the reclamation land just north of the ferry terminal.
Everyone was ready to go by 10am, decked out in high-vis shirts, to keep us visible in this unique area.
The reclamation land is rarely walked by beach goers, cut off by the ferry terminal one side, and the motorway the other. It’s a de-facto sanctuary because of this, however it also gets heavily affected by rubbish coming from both the ocean and the stream outlet.
Interislander were on hand and generously offering hats and t-shirts to the crew and given the hot still weather these were welcomed.
William from centreport gave us some background to the area as well as pointed out the specific safety hazards of the area and the team were off.
We were also stoked to have the University of Victoria’s Society for Conservation Biology there to run a litter survey and audit. 60 metres of the beach was staked out surveyed, and the rubbish from this survey and audit will help inform the government about the marine litter problem in New Zealand Aotearoa. We’re really excited to have this addition to our beach cleanups.
After a few hours picking up rubbish we had amassed around 2000 litres from the beaches, and everyone was ready for a cold drink supplied by Phoenix Organics and a pizza from Hells.
A huge thanks to Kiwirail, Interislander and Centreport for all working together to make this cleanup happen!
