Can 10,000 pieces of litter be collected from one New Zealand beach by one person in only 70 days? Sadly it has been depressingly easy.

This week sees the release of a collaborative video project between two Canterbury artists, Matt Akehurst and David Thorpe, which highlights the ‘disappointing success’ of Matt’s beach litter campaign.

Matt, aka the ‘Rubbish Runner’, has been running a 4km loop most days and picking up litter on the way. His aim was to pick up 7,000 pieces in 70 days. This goal was exceeded on day 47. Yikes! Matt was also collecting pictures of the litter he found and posting them on his Facebook page. That’s when he bumped into David who suggested making the images into a video. David wrote and produced a soundtrack for the video to link it all together.

“We are just two blokes with the same goal”, says Matt. “We humans make a mess, we are all responsible and need to make changes and do our bit.”

Matt and David are just a couple of average Kiwis on a similar mission – to create awareness of our litter problem and set a better example for our kids.

Check out their video here:

Coromandel Town really got behind their plastic bag-free Friday on 6 April. Local retailers all put away the plastic bags for the day. And they stuck to their guns too. The hardware store/garden centre even lost a sale as they refused to give a customer a plastic bag. Now that’s dedication!

To prepare customers, the organisers put posters up around town, had information in the local paper, plus radio coverage and Facebook posts to community pages in the lead-up to the day.

Organisers spoke to all the retailers beforehand. Replacement paper bags were provided for customers as an alternative to plastic bags on the day. Four Square were amazing, printing and displaying huge posters about the day, they supplied their own paper bags and used a lot of boxes as well. They even removed the plastic produce bags.

Although paper bags are not the answer, this event opened the eyes of many retailers to the fact they often don’t need to supply a bag at all. Many shops actually gave out very few paper bags on the day as people brought their own reusable bags or just said “Bags Not”. And customers really started talking and thinking about the role of plastic bags. There was a stall set up outside Four Square where upcycled fabric bags were made available for a koha and about a hundred of them were distributed to the public.

The moral of the story? Engage the retailers, engage the shoppers, provide easy alternatives to single-use plastic bags and give loads of positive support to all the wonderful people who go plastic bag-free.

What a difference a day makes. Well done Coromandel Town!

Article and photos by Dr Kate James, Marine Scientist.

Get in contact:

f: facebook.com/plasticbagfreecoromandeltown

e: plasticbagfreecoromandel@gmail.com

On Friday March 9, Air New Zealand held their annual Sustainability Fair for around a thousand of their staff at their Auckland HQ.

The objective: inspire and educate Air New Zealand’s staff about a wide range of sustainable initiatives and environmentally-minded practices that anyone can participate in or include in their daily lives.

That’s why “Bags Not” was invited to the event. Air New Zealand wanted to spread the word about our effort to get rid of single-use plastic bags from the country. While we were there, we gave away over 200 reusable shopping bags, had loads of people sign up to our movement or pledge to take our 7-Day “Bags Not” Challenge.

We were in good eco-friendly company too. Sea Cleaners, New World, Department of Conservation, Auckland Transport, Auckland City Council, Eco Matters Environment Trust, Auckland University (Plastic Diet), For The Love of Bees, Compost Collective, Kaipatiki Environment Project Centre, ecostore, Green Heart Jewellery, The Wild Seaweed Company, Shed 24 Unique Wooden Projects, Tree Candy, Trio Soya Candles, Hihi Honey, Vegan Otherside Foodtruck, Las Masitas Vegan Mexican Street Food, Organic Gelato, Hungry for Raw, Mercury Energy, Macpac and Hummingbird Coffee were also there, sharing the amazing work they’re doing to restore this country’s clean green credentials.

Some photos from the day:

Check out this great NZ company doing their bit to help make your family plastic wrap-free: LilyBee

The founders of LilyBee felt like they were drowning in plastic. They were right. In 2013 alone, 78 million metric tons of plastic packaging was produced worldwide. 40% of it was landfilled and another 32% escaped into the environment, polluting the land and sea. 268,940 tons are estimated to be choking Earth’s oceans.

This is a global problem, which means it’s an issue here in our country too. According to recycle.co.nz, projections show that with current population growth, the annual amount of waste sent to landfills will almost double within 10 years in Auckland alone.

So they set out on a mission to make their family plastic wrap-free. After lots of trial and error to get their formula right, they came up with a recipe for a natural wrap that uses local beeswax, tree resin and organic coconut oil infused into 100% cotton.

Now thousands of families around New Zealand have followed their lead and are using their LilyBee Wrap. People have discovered how well the wraps keep food fresh, how pretty they are, how good they smell and how good it feels to be a plastic wrap-free household!

We were lucky enough to be invited along to a recent Volvo Ocean Race function to witness New Zealand’s Associate Environment Minister, Eugenie Sage, sign New Zealand up to the United Nations Clean Seas campaign. We are the 42nd country to do so.

In this year’s Volvo Ocean Race there’s a team called ‘Turn The Tide On Plastic’ representing the United Nations’ ‘Clean Seas’ initiative. They’re campaigning throughout the eight months of the race to raise awareness about the problem of plastics in our oceans.

Did you know that scientist estimate there is over 150 million tonnes of plastic in the world’s oceans and that every year 8 million more tonnes is added!

This plastic can then be ingested by whales, turtles and other larger marine animals, or breaks apart (very slowly) forming microplastics that are ingested by animals at the bottom of the food chain, such as plankton. The plastic then works its way back up the food chain as bigger fish eat the smaller fish until eventually it ends up on our dinner plates.

Because the boats in the Volvo Ocean Race travel through such remote parts of the world’s ocean, they provide the perfect opportunity to test how much plastic is in those waters. The Turn The Tide On Plastic team is deploying specialised scientific equipment as they race, providing valuable data for scientists to study.

New Zealand sailor Bianca Cook is on board the Turn The Tide On Plastic boat. She spoke at the event highlighting the shocking amounts of plastic they have seen during the race and how everyone needs to work together to stop using single-use plastics. She’s also onboard and spreading the word as an early-adopter of our “Bags Not” Facebook profile pic. You can too. To show your support like Bianca and change your profile pic.

Minister Sage spoke about what we do on the land affects the oceans. “People need to think about whether they really need that single-use plastic bag, single-use plastic straw an disposable packaging.”

To learn more about the Turn The Tide On Plastic campaign, check out the Clean Seas website: www.cleanseas.org.

For more info on the Volvo Ocean Race and how Bianca’s team are tracking, take a look at their website: www.volvooceanrace.com.