The Maggs Family Story: ‘Rubbish Spoiling Nature’

As told to by Sarah Maggs to Justine Skilling, the Mangere Bridge WasteWise Story Writer 

Our children are always keen to pick up rubbish, possibly as a result of spending their early years at Keas under the leadership and influence of Janine Nillesen (WasteWise member and Ambury Farm Park Ranger), as well as their involvement in Kiwi Conservation Club (www.kcc.org.nz) and Forest and Bird (www.forestandbird.org.nz).  We have participated in lots of the foreshore tidy ups that Janine has organised, and have tried to instil awareness about recycling in our children, as this is an important family philosophy.  We often carry gloves on our walks around the farm in case we find rubbish.  Our son William has enjoyed creating new things out of the rubbish that we find.

On a recent walk out to Puketutu Island with some relatives from Wales, we were disturbed and embarrassed by the amount of rubbish we found lying around.  We’d taken our family out to show them a beautiful spot in our community and were hoping to catch a glimpse of a seal that we’ve seen in the area before.  Our visitors were so enthusiastic about the idea of picking up rubbish that we spent a couple of hours walking around the foreshore and gathering up what we could.  We felt that the rubbish was tainting the landscape and we wanted it to look beautiful again.  William is particularly concerned about rubbish such as fishing line that might be harmful to birds and this was a motivating factor for him in joining in the impromptu clean up.

The rubbish turned out to be mostly recyclable and some of it we were able to reuse ourselves.  The area immediately looked better after we’d finished, but we still felt disappointed that people had dumped this waste in the first place. I wondered why people are not ‘finishing off’ their acts of consumption (ie. they buy and consume but don’t dispose of the waste generated by products).  I also wondered why other people hadn’t thought to pick up the rubbish and what message it sends to children when we pass by rubbish and don’t take responsibility for keeping our beautiful spaces clean.  There seem to be some gaps here.

After the clean up, we took photos of the rubbish we’d collected and entered one of the photos in the Manukau Harbour Seaweek Photo Competition, to show people that all is not beautiful in our harbour.  Our family will continue to pick up rubbish in the area, as it isn’t hard.  We feel that Mangere Bridge is a special, cohesive community and that there is considerable interest in keeping it beautiful and developing it, and our actions are contributing to this.