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.

On Friday 7 October a small team of seven employees from Auckland-based insurers Lantern Insurance joined our crew for a clean-up of the iconic Rangitoto Island. With plenty of experience scouring Auckland’s beaches for trash — this is the sixth time Lantern staff have joined us for coastal clean-up activities — the team made light work of the challenging terrain around Flax Point and removed over 1,000 litres of rubbish, an amazing effort.

Through hands-on action like this over our past few years of operation we’ve found this to be an excellent, practical, fun way for organisations and their employees to learn about how litter from Auckland’s streets flows out through our storm water system and affects coastlines on uninhabited islands like Rangitoto.

In December 2010 a large section of the island was cleaned-up by over 1,200 volunteers and due to the resounding success of this event, we are repeating the clean-up this summer. On Tuesday 6th December we are taking over 1,000 students and volunteers back to Rangitoto Island for a large-scale coastal clean-up and we are looking for adult volunteers to help us out, particularly those with current First Aid qualifications. Check out the event page for further details.

If your organisation would like to take part in an event like this, contact us today.

On Saturday the 5th of November, a massive team of 210 Auckland-based Air New Zealand staff members and their families joined our crew for a clean-up of the Manukau Harbour. This marked the first Air New Zealand coastal clean-up with us, and in just over an hour volunteers managed to gather an impressive 8,000 litres — or a whopping 1.18 tonnes — of trash from the Harbour’s shores! A valiant effort.

This cooperative effort helps raise awareness of marine debris and urban trash that makes its way into our oceans, more often than not through our storm water drains. This kind of hands-on action reaffirms the initial briefing the staff were given before the clean-up and opened a lot eyes to how much of an issue coastal trash is.

After the clean-up the Air New Zealand and Sustainable Coastlines crew were treated to an intimate and excellent performance from none other than Fat Freddy’s Drop. The crew enjoyed the band, ate delicious food and washed it all down with a few refreshments at Royal Oak Intermediate sports field, celebrating a fun and rewarding day.

In the course of applied action like this over our past few years of operations we have found this to be an admirable, practical, fun way for organisations and their employees to learn about how litter from our streets really affects our coastlines on a huge scale.

If your organisation would like to take part in an event like this, contact us today.

Thank you

A huge thank you to every one of the fantastic volunteers who came out with us to clean-up the coast during our Love your Coast Wellington Clean-ups. Together, over 2,800 of us worked together to remove over 25,000 litres of rubbish from coastlines all around the Wellington region. That’s enough to almost entirely fill a shipping container and unfortunately is an even larger load than we collected from the same beaches just one year ago. A massive thank you also to our Team Leaders, Clean-up Station helpers, and of course our generous sponsors. Without you all, we could not have achieved what we did. We’ll be posting full event details on this page in the next few days, including photos from the day and a detailed breakdown of results, so watch this space.

Enter our Photo Comp!

We are looking for photos from the day and would love to see yours. Send your best pics to us at [email protected] or — if you’ve got high-res shots that are a battle to email — upload them straight to our swish dropbox system by clicking here.

Some very fancy prizes are up for grabs from Sony, PhotoCPL, Arnette and Sitka, so show off your photographic prowess and send us your pics! Check out photos from previous winners here. Make sure you get them in before entries close at 5pm on Friday 16 December. We’ll be announcing winners the following week.

The legal stuff: By submitting photos into the Love your Coast Wellington Photo Comp you are agreeing to grant Sustainable Coastlines Incorporated, any media and partner organisations a license to use, distribute publish or exhibit these photos in any manner either now known or subsequently devised and without any restrictions, in perpetuity. If you request, your photo will be duly credited whenever used in this way.

Final event information

On Thursday 8 December, we will have upwards of 1,500 school students out cleaning up their local stretches of coastline. If you are interested in becoming involved in leading a team of school students, or simply accompanying them for the clean-up, then just email [email protected] let us know and we will provide you with further information.

On Friday 9 December, if you want to clean-up on this day with a team from your workplace, then contact [email protected]

On Saturday 10 December, we invite you to join us at a clean-up station near you. All you need to do is turn up at one of our seven stations from 10am to 2pm (except at Porirua — meet from 12pm – 4pm), collect rubbish sacks and gloves and head down to the coast to pick-up as much rubbish as we can. Click here to check out locations of all event stations or check out each event address below.

Island Bay: Meet outside Island Bay Marine Education Centre, The Esplanade, Island Bay

Lyall Bay: Meet outside Maranui Surf Life Saving Club, Lyall Parade, Lyall Bay

Shelly Bay: Meet outside Chocolate Fish Cafe, Shelly Bay Road, Shelly Bay

Days Bay: Meet outside Days Bay Pavillion, Williams Park, Marine Drive, Days Bay

Petone: Meet at the wharf, The Esplanade, Petone

Central Wellington: Meet next to Te Papa on Taranaki Wharf, Central Wellington

Porirua: Meet from 12pm to 4pm, cnr Titahi Bay Rd and Wineera Drive, Porirua

Important notes / what to bring

This clean-up will be a great adventure, but it is important that all event participants are well prepared so as to make the most of the day.

• Volunteers must be physically fit and willing to spend several hours walking on challenging, rocky terrain, sometimes while carrying sacks of rubbish.
• Wear sturdy shoes: Coastal rocks can be sharp, loose and can be slippery so please wear appropriate shoes.
• Pack warm and waterproof clothes: Weather can be unpredictable at this time of year. Bring at least one warm top (ideally old woolen) and a rain jacket in a backpack you can carry with you.
• Carry sunscreen and a hat
• Bring plenty of food and water: Clean-up can be physically challenging so come prepared!
• Bring your camera: Capture memories of a fantastic day and enter your best shots in our photo competition.
• We provide all clean-up equipment, including rubbish sacks, gloves and other safety gear.

Massive clean-up planned for Wellington’s coastlines

Last December, over 2,000 Wellingtonians worked together on beaches around the region to remove over 19,000 litres (nearly two tonnes!) of rubbish from the coastline. See the short film we made about the event here.

Due to the resounding success of last year’s event, we are repeating the clean-up this summer and are looking for schools, organisations, businesses and volunteers to participate in the Love your Coast Wellington Clean-up on Thursday 8, Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December.

We are offering free educational presentations to schools, community groups and supporting businesses for what will be a truly regional effort. We already have schools participating from Wellington City, The Hutt Valley, The Kapiti Coast, Porirua, Makara and even the Wairarapa: a total of over 4,000 people already involved in what is shaping up to be our biggest event ever!

If you are interested in joining this clean-up event, simply join us on Saturday 10 December. If your school, organisation or community group would like to participate in a clean-up outside of these dates, we’d be only too happy to help. Simply email Event Director Ryley Webster on [email protected]

If your business would like to support or participate in this event please contact Sam Judd on [email protected]