A whopping 192 kilos of rubbish collected from the Manukau Harbour foreshore shows “WE CARE”

By Frances Hancock

Forty-five local residents collected a whopping 192 kilos of rubbish near both Mangere bridges on Saturday 29 August.  Over a two hour period we clocked up an impressive 75 volunteer hours!

The major waste problem continues to be plastic in all forms including bottles, cups, containers, shopping bags, lolly wrappings, food containers, bottle tops and plates.  Sadly, beer bottles thrown into the harbour and fast-food packaging were also abundant.  Two of our teenage wastewise champions found a pallet on the rocks and lugged it over the reserve, while another helped with sorting. Others found a bright orange traffic cone stuck in the mud, the odd jandal, clothing, part of an old tire, a large sign from a previous community event, cardboard, and a lot of paper.  Particularly worrying were the small pieces of plastics too numerous to count and which can so easily get lodged in a bird’s throat or entangle our fish.

Friends of Farm arrange working bees on a regular basis and we hosted this one at relatively short notice.  We’re working hard to encourage an “our patch approach’, where by Mangere Bridge residents take on greater responsibility for caring for our local environment.  A short notice event allowed us to test the effectiveness of our social media networks and word of mouth contacts. These avenues are our main means of advertising and we were thrilled with the turn out.  We use our own Friends of the Farm Facebook page, the Neighbourly website and the Mangere Bridge community noticeboard, all of which are well supported locally. 

 

Many familiar faces – including retired residents and school age children – pitched in to help. A number of new families also demonstrated their commitment to cleaning-up the foreshore. It was particularly encouraging to see so many children and teenagers attend the working bee with their parents. Maja Skilling came along to help with her mother, Justine.  "It felt good to be helping the planet and making a difference, small as it is, in my own backyard" says Maja.  Check out Maja’s inspiring video about the issue of floating islands of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean. 

Working bees are a great opportunity to meet new people living in our area or catch up with other residents you know already. People share stories and pass on local news.  One long-time supporter arrived with bags of lemons she and her daughter had just picked from her neighbour’s laden tree. “My elderly neighbour wants to share the fruit with other families,” she said.  

Janine, whose vision it was to create a Friend’s group, coordinated the effort and made sure everyone knew what they were doing and kept safe. Meredith, our environmental educator, weighed the rubbish, which Jack helped to sort and carry to the drop-off spot, ready for Council contractors to collect.  Jacqui, our local photographer, was also on hand to record the experience. 
  

Our Friends’ group has organised many of these events over the past few years and we now feel confident our growing team of hardy volunteers will turn out because  “We Care!”