Volunteers purge tonnes of rubbish from city waterways
Bags of keys, camera film almost three decades old and eight shopping trolleys were among the more unusual finds as the Mother of all Cleanups returned to Christchurch.
The annual city-wide waterway tidy-up was forced online last year by the Covid-19 pandemic but organisers said this year’s events were bigger and better than ever.
About 1200 volunteers took part in the main cleanup on Saturday at the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, where they collected 700 bags of rubbish, as well as a hundred items too big to fit in bags.
This year they were joined by a new event for school students, Operation Riverquest, which took place earlier in the week.
Operation Riverquest saw 10.5 kilometres of Christchurch’s riverbeds and coastlines cleaned by 20 schools, with about 1300 students mucking in.
While the data was still being tallied on exactly what rubbish was collected and how much, lead organiser and estuary trust manager Tanya Jenkins said they believed they collected several tonnes.
She said the usual culprits – food waste and plastic packaging – were joined by some more unusual items like number plates, plastic bags filled with keys, eight shopping trolleys, and a section of camera film from 1996.
‘‘There is still a lot of work to do,’’ Jenkins said.
‘‘The message we want to get out there is that you don’t have to wait until Mother’s Day to do something for our waterways.’’
Jenkins said they had launched a second new mother of all cleanups initiative, called high five, which encourages Kiwis to pick up five pieces of rubbish on their daily travels and upload photos with the hashtag, ‘#highfivenz’.
Local and national government representatives also got involved, including Green MP and former conservation minister Eugenie Sage, and Christchurch city councillor Sara Templeton.
Templeton has attended the event each year since it first began five years ago and said she was a strong supporter.
‘‘It is a highlight in the environmental calendar for O¯ tautahi. The co-ordination of a wide range of community groups and individuals to clean up our waterways is a huge effort and is appreciated by all.’’
While the amount of waste collected has trended downward since the mother of all cleanups was launched in 2016, the amount of rubbish in Christchurch waterways remains an ongoing issue.
Hamish Fairbairn, of Conservation Volunteers NZ, said the common offenders of chip packets and plastic bottles were joined every year by larger items including shopping trolleys and discarded tyres.
In the last live event in 2019, about 3.6 tonnes of rubbish was collected from Christchurch’s rivers and the Avon-Heathcote Estuary.
‘‘The message we want to get out there is that you don’t have to wait until Mother’s Day to do something for our waterways.’’
Tanya Jenkins
Estuary trust manager