Clean-up - September 2016
Our first event was a clean-up day from 9:30 to 12:00 before a BBQ lunch at midday. Afterwards a few hardy volunteers stayed on to help audit all the rubbish we'd collected over the 2 1/2 hours until 3:00 - what a day!
After our clean up we had an audit so that we could see exactly what rubbish was dumped in our reserve. This ranged from shoes, to plastic sheets to tyres to carpets. We found over 120 pieces of metal, and over 150 pieces of plastic.
Among the general household rubbish and single-use plastic collected was a trampoline, a mattress, a porch swing set, and the remains of a foosball table (we know there was a complete, albeit broken, foosball table there in the past). As well as these we noticed garden-variety plants on the outskirts on some parts of the reserve.
Because of the vast amounts of organic and inorganic waste, we were all very disappointed to come to the conclusion that the reserve has been used as nothing more than a dumping site for years.
Everyone, particularly those who stayed for the audit, found the clean up tiring. This is especially compared to clean ups on (for example) beaches and some tree plantings, while we were picking up rubbish in steep, muddy forest. Our youngest was 7 while our oldest was 55.
Fortunately, judging by the sheer bulk of the rubbish brought in and lack of it in the bush, we won't have to do that again at Jutland any time soon!
Special thanks to Scott and Louise, Claire, Sue and Bryan, and Phillipa for all the help in making today run smoothly. And of course, thank you to all our wonderful workers, most of whom were members of the Takapuna-Devonport Guiding community; couldn't have done it without you!
