Wellingtonians worst litterbugs in country

Saturday, 13 July 2024

Wellington takes up the top four of the top 10 most rubbish-strewn beaches in the country.

Wellington, we’re a bunch of litterbugs.

Wellington takes up the top four of the 10 most rubbish-strewn beaches in the country, despite the amount of litter in our region starting to go down a year after the single use plastic ban.

Charity Sustainable Coastlines surveys about 350 sites around the country regularly and conducts audits of what is found to determine the level of litter being found.

Last weekend saw their volunteers headed to two sites on the Petone foreshore - the Hikoikoi Reserve beachfront and the Honiana Te Puni Reserve near the Wellington Ski club.

Even with the litter found there, they are not one of the top spots. Those are Paremata Bridge, Kaiwharawhara estuary, Kau Bay and Porirua Stream estuary.

The other top spots are in Auckland, Tasman-Nelson and Otago.

And while it's bad news that Wellington is ahead of the rest, there is some encouragement that the amount of litter has dropped.

It’s been a year since single use plastics were banned and Sustainable Coastlines engagement manager Dan Downing said on average there had been 561 items per 1000m² and it was now down to 511.

Sustainable Coastlines engagement manager Dan Downing who helped supervise the clean ups at sections of the Petone foreshore last week says while there are less whole plastic bags, unidentifiable soft plastic found could be coming from degrading bags.

Most was soft and hard fragments of plastic.

The percentage of plastic had reduced too, going from 70% to 61% overall.

“So it is trending the right way,” Downing said.

It’s hard to say what effect the banning of single use plastic is having - plastic can stick around a long time and can break down into parts that are hard to identify.

One of the biggest categories of what is found is unidentifiable hard and soft plastic - some of which could be broken down bags which are degrading.

'Less plastic bags are being found, but the increasing amount of unidentifiable soft plastic found could be coming from degrading bags,” he said.

Downing said over the last year, food wrappers and bottle caps were slowly reducing.

He said most of what was found was still single use plastic, bottle caps and lollipop sticks being common.

Downing said he had been doing the surveys for six years and plastic bags were definitely turning up less.

Sustainable Coastlines holds regular surveys of litter on public beaches. Volunteers clear a portion of the beach then audit what is picked up.

“Single use plastic is the enemy,” he said.

The Hikoikoi reserve clean up showed most was unidentified hard plastic. The rest was bottle caps and lids, food containers, food wrappers, glass and ceramic, construction material and paper and cardboard.

The clean up near the ski club had a much heavier haul - including 29 straws, nine shotgun wadding and shells, 144 bottle caps and lids, 31 cable ties, 37 parking tickets and receipts, 133 food containers and 408 food wrappers.

Downing said the idea behind the regular surveys was to collect of data,

“You can’t change what you do not measure,” he said.

He said the areas with the most litter could be affected by a number of things, their proximity to industrial areas, outflow from nearby rivers, tidal flow, how much comes down stormwater drains or local events or clubs - like in the case of shotgun wadding and shells.