On Friday 12 April, 25 staff from Meridian Energy joined our crew for the company’s third clean-up of this wild stretch of coast south of Wellington’s Makara Beach.

The spectacular and rugged coast at Te Ikaamaru Bay is only accessible by roads through Meridian’s West Wind Farm and, although very isolated, is affected by a regular flow of waste from towns further up the coast as well as by fishing and aquaculture industry rubbish from the Marlborough Sounds.

Meridian staffed convoyed across rugged 4WD terrain to the beach, and in a matter of hours managed to remove 2,000 litres or 40 full sacks of rubbish from the coast. An impressive effort on Te Ikaamaru Bay’s challenging, driftwood strewn shores. Following the clean-up staff and Sustainable Coastlines crew returned to West Wind Farm’s site office for a well deserved BBQ and cold drink to celebrate the day’s work.

Over the past few years we have proven this type of hands-on action to be an excellent, practical, fun way for anyone to learn about how rubbish from near and far can affect isolated coastlines like those on Meridian’s West Wind Farm.

A massive thank you to all Meridian staff not only for your fantastic effort on the day. A big thank you also to the team at Hirepool, Hiremaster and Harmony Meats for once again supporting our event, your help is always greatly appreciated.

If you’d like to take part in an event like this, contact us today.