Thanks to a solid turnout of 100 hardy volunteers on this blustery spring day, more than 2,000 litres of rubbish was removed from the beaches and dunes of Piha this Saturday. In all, nearly 10,000 individual items were collected from this rugged West Coast beach on Saturday, a total that surprised many on what initially looked like a fairly spotless stretch of coastline.

The major offenders were food and drink-related litter, with over 1,639 individual caps and lids found and 1,611 food wrappers and containers removed from the beach. Hundreds of plastic bags, cigarette butts and packages, plastic bottles, aluminium cans, and glass bottles were also retrieved from the beach — a clear indication of careless littering. Despite the trash we found, it is evident that caring beach-goers regularly remove rubbish from the beach, due to a smaller-than-expected presence of large litter items such as plastic bottles on high-use areas of the coast. Kudos to those who are doing their bit to keep our beaches clean.

A big thank you to everyone who turned up on the day and helped out. A special shout out to our buddies at Sitka for running the show at our North Piha station, to Kwik N Ezy for providing the canopy to keep us sheltered from the patchy-at-best weather conditions, and to New Zealand Surf ‘n’ Snow Tours for providing epic prizes for participants.

Call for volunteers

Clean-up of this stunning West Coast beach, as part of International Coastal Clean-up Day and New Zealand Conservation Week.

Meet us from 10am to 2pm outside the surf clubs at South Piha (Piha Surf Live Saving Club) and North Piha (United North Piha Surf Life Saving Club). Look out for our big blue SC flags. Come say hi, grab your rubbish sacks and gloves and help us give a little loving back to this epic spot. See map of meeting points.

We’ll be holding a BBQ at the South Piha location and prizes are up for grabs for participants.