MEDIA RELEASE 17 December 2013
And Bothamley Park makes the grand total 12.5 tons

A small group of Wellington residents collected 350kg of rubbish from Bothamley Park on Sunday in the 100th ‘Let’s Keep New Zealand Beautiful Together’ clean up. The day marked the end of an eight month campaign to stop rubbish from finding its way into our waterways and out to sea and saw the tally of rubbish collected along almost 6 million square metres of New Zealand’s creeks, rivers and shorelines reach a whopping 12.5 tons!

“The clean-ups have been a labour of love for around 2,100 volunteers; individuals, schools, community groups and businesses,” says Conservation Volunteers North Island Manager Fiona McLaughlin. “While people have been saddened at the sheer volume of rubbish they’ve come away feeling pretty positive about the difference they’ve been able to make to their environment.”

Run by Conservation Volunteers New Zealand, the clean-ups formed part of a nationwide initiative to educate and encourage Kiwis to re-duce, re-use and re-cycle.

All rubbish was weighed and analysed with a total of 547kg of the rubbish found made of plastic –- items such as food wrappers, lollipop sticks, cigarette butts and plastic bottles.

Plastic rubbish breaks down in sea water and sun. The smaller particles leach toxins such as Bisphenol A (BPA) into the environment. These small fragments are also a death trap to wildlife. Two hundred and sixty marine species are known to become entangled or eat floating plastic rubbish, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

“We’re very thankful to the Coca-Cola Foundation for their support of this initiative, we couldn’t have achieved what we have without their support,” says Fiona.

Of the 11 clean ups held in Wellington 551 volunteers collected a total of 1,214kg.

Bothamley Park volunteer Pam Watson says it was a brilliant idea to involve the community. “Some of the rubbish seemed to have been there for years but it was a good day in all,” says Pam.

Discarded rubbish, particularly plastic, is a growing global issue. Visit www.alittlealot.org.nz and make a personal pledge to recycle, re-use and reduce.

Conservation Volunteers New Zealand run conservation and environmental programmes including habitat regeneration, enhancing our waterways and protecting New Zealand’s special habitats and wildlife.

Founded in Australia in 1982, Conservation Volunteers expanded operations to New Zealand in 2006. Today, Conservation Volunteers is a leader in delivery of practical conservation programmes, community involvement and a range of training programmes involving over 12,000 volunteers across Australia and New Zealand every year.
www.conservationvolunteers.co.nz
-ENDS-

Wellington Outcomes – area covered 347,000sqm

Outcomes for all areas – area covered 5,977,250sqm
(Auckland, Tauranga, Matamata, Morrinsville, Whakatane, Porirua, Christchurch)

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