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Volunteers have collected hundreds of kilograms of rubbish from the region’s beaches during Seaweek.
Old rubber tyres, plastic bottles and “a lot of cigarette butts” are amongst the hundreds of kilograms of rubbish removed from the region’s beaches during Seaweek in Marlborough.
The Massive Marlborough Clean-Up campaign got schools, businesses and individuals doing their own clean-up projects across the region, as well as public events at Rārangi and Picton.
Ailie Suzuki, general manager of Envirohub Marlborough, said there was a lot of debris collected from Picton’s industrial area on March 8.
“We found a lot of bottles and did a litter intelligence (analysis) along the Picton foreshore, and predominately we picked up a lot of cigarette butts – bottles, cans, cigarette butts and a lot of plastic– but probably the largest quantity of items we collected were cigarettes butts,” she said.
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A group of litter-pickers scoured the foreshore for about 90 minutes, and filled about 10 50L rubbish bags with a variety of waste in just a short time, she said.
Suzuki said it was great to see youngsters getting involved from a very young age.
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Old tyres and planks of wood with protruding rusty nails at Rārangi can cause harm to marine life, pets and people.
“It’s been really cool to watch the kindergartens and the Early Learning Centres and the local schools getting involved.
“Port Marlborough really came to the table for that and for a midweek event, we actually had quite a good turnout.”
At Rārangi, scores of volunteers turned out to collect debris from the beach on Sunday.
An estimated 500kg of waste was removed including “a lot of tyres, wood with nails, cans and food wrappers”.
JOHN BISSET/STUFF
Sea Cleaners arrived in Timaru for the first time as part of their efforts to clean up New Zealand beaches.
The Massive Marlborough Clean-up seemed to grow every year, Suzuki said.
“It’s getting bigger and bigger, and it’s really taken off in recent years, and it’s being embraced by more and more people,” Suzuki said.
“It is a great opportunity for education and for locals to clean up and be more aware of the rubbish that is going into our waterways and into our beautiful oceans.
“It’s just a really nice way for the entirety of Marlborough to come together and draw attention to it.”
Suzuki said Seaweek also provided an opportunity for the people of Marlborough to celebrate the ocean on its doorstep.
“One of Envirohub’s goals is to ensure every child in Marlborough has the opportunity to explore and experience our marine environments.
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Members of the Rohingya community were taken on a cruise to Lochmara as part of the Seaweek celebrations.
“Our fully sponsored Conservation Kids NZ Ocean Adventure Cruise provides this opportunity. Children are nominated and are taken out for a short cruise in the Queen Charlotte Sound, then taken to Lochmara Lodge where they experience sea creatures and the underwater environment. Many of these children have never even been on a boat before.”
This year families on the Adventure Cruise in Marlborough included a few Rohingya families, recently resettled in Marlborough through the Red Cross resettlement programme.
The Red Cross had nominated them for the experience, Suzuki said.
”It really warmed the heart to see them really enjoying themselves and just being really appreciative of having the opportunity,” Suzuki said.
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