Picking up rubbish at the beach

I love that when I start picking up plastic rubbish from the beach, people don't laugh at me and tell me I'm weird. They start picking it up too.

Beach clean-up

It was great to see forty or fifty people out on the Cobham Drive coast yesterday, picking up rubbish for the Forest & Bird Seaweek beach clean-up. Older people, younger people, kids—all pitching in.

There was a heap of rubbish wedged among the rocks. Plastic drink bottles galore.

At least 10 rubbish sacks were filled in the couple of hours I was there.

Most interesting find: Barbie's shoe

Most ironic find: a tie between an "NZ Natural" plastic water bottle and a plastic city council rubbish bag

Plastic-free Evans Bay

I filled a plastic supermarket bag (ironic, no?) with bits of plastic picked up off one of the beaches on Evans Bay Parade this weekend. Still thinking about the Pacific Garbage Patch.

That'll be 0.000000000000001% of it fixed, then.

Otara

Work sent me to Manukau Institute of Technology for a book launch on Friday.

For notorious South Auckland it was nicer than I expected.
Down Otara Rd there were loads of citrus trees in front gardens.
Ngati Otara Kura Kaupapa had a splendid bed of winter vegetables (silverbeet and brassicas). That cheered me up immensely.

Then it was worse.
At the end of the road Ngati Otara Park backs on to Otara Creek. There was a sign up saying "Warning: Polluted. Do not swim, do not fish."

I felt quite shocked. Even worse, Manukau City Council says it's due to industrial pollution:
http://www.manukau.govt.nz/tec/catchment/otara_pages/otara_background.htm