Cigarette butts choke Wellington Harbour
At the rate we are going it will not be long before Wellington Harbour is choked with cigarette butts and other rubbish.
That is the conclusion reached by a group of Year 7 and 8 students at Wilford School who have been studying our storm water drains.
With help from Auckland based firm Stormwater 360, they installed two filters on drains in Petone.
Not surprisingly they collected a large range of rubbish, everything from cigarette butts to recycling bins and plastic bottles.
The most unusual item was a bikini top but teacher Alisa Webb said that what really alarmed the students was the sheer volume.
Over 12 weeks they collected 2680 pieces of rubbish, 50 per cent of which was cigarette butts.
Most of the butts came from a trap outside a hotel on Jackson St.
A cigarette butt takes between one and five years to break down in the sea.
They also contain a range of toxic substances that can enter the food chain via fish.
A tin can takes 400 years to break down and a hard plastic bottle 450.
Jemma Allwood,12, said that there were 93 storm water drains in the vicinity. Using the figures from the two drains they studied that would equate to 664,274 pieces of rubbish entering the harbour every year.
‘‘By the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish and our beaches will not look nice.’’
People also had to learn to use reusable drink bottles and cotton bags.
Every hour 40,000 plastics were put into landfills and, she said, that was as bad as all the rubbish going into the harbour.
Their interest in the issue was sparked after completing the Experience Marine Reserves Programme run by the Island Bay Marine Trust.
Webb said the intention was to publicise the results and put pressure on the Hutt City Council to make everyone more aware of the problem. The school was also looking for support to put plaques on storm water drains.
Jemma and her classmates recently presented their findings to the council and Department of Conservation.
She said their message was obvious.
‘‘Don’t use storm water drains as a rubbish bin.’’