Waihī Beach Litter Intelligence Survey & Audit

Are you interested in taking action against ocean pollution at your local coastline?

Join us 1st October from 11.30am at Waihī Beach for a beach clean-up and Litter Intelligence survey. Sustainable Waihī Beach are launching a community beach clean pod system, and we need your support! Come along to get stuck in with a collecting the litter in front of the Surf Club and recording the litter in an audit, we’ll enter this data to Litter Intelligence, the national database and solutions platform, to monitor changes in the litter concentration on the beach after the pods have been launched!

All are welcome to this whānau-friendly free event. The equipment will be provided, including gloves, sacks, and health and safety briefing. See the below on more details from Sustainable Waihī Beach on why to make it along:

Why not hit Waihī Beach this school holidays and help promote the launch of some very cool Community Beach Clean Pods! We need as many people at the front of the Waihī Beach Surf Club to video the launch of the pods and the opening karakai for an advert promoting kiwis and visitors alike to help us keep our pristine beaches clean here in Aotearoa.

There will be some amazing activities after the video shoot including a sustainable sandcastle competition, sand rake art lessons and a giant piece of sand art being drawn, a beach clean competition and free sausages and pizza for those that join in! We are joined by Jemma from Sustainable Coastlines who will be working with the Waihī Beach School’s Beach Clean Kaitiaki and any other willing volunteers to do a targeted beach clean to report back to central government – how cool is that!

Please join us at 10:30 for the launch with the celebrated Reon Tuanau, Te Whānau a Tauwhao and Waihī Beach School Beach Clean Kaitiaki for something a wee bit special!

Nau mai haere mai, we can’t wait to see you there!

Any questions, email Jemma at [email protected]

Please register your attendance on the form below.

About the Litter Intelligence Programme

Working in collaboration with the Ministry for the Environment, Statistics New Zealand and the Department of Conservation, we have developed a national beach litter monitoring programme that will enable us to build an accurate picture of the beach litter problem in New Zealand and help to prioritise solutions.

By working to a United Nations Environment Program survey methodology, the data is collected at the highest standard of scientific rigour, allowing it to be used for national, regional and international reporting, including progress against UN Sustainable Development Goals.

To collect the beach litter data long-term, we work with community groups & organisations to conduct beach litter surveys across Aotearoa at least four times per year. We provide the training and tools required to take part in this project as Citizen Scientists, conducting regular litter surveys at their chosen local beach sites and loading the litter data into a new, easy to use nationwide beach litter Citizen Science Platform/App we’ve developed specifically for the project. The Litter Intelligence litter data base also includes a solutions data base and some awesome litter data visualisation tools that are in development at present. All the litter data collected is freely available to the groups involved as well as to the wider public and decision makers.

Interested in setting up your own site but can’t make the event? Please complete this form and we’ll reach out.