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HUSK CHRISTMAS BEACH CLEANUP

Christmas 2019 – the year we decided to steer away from the usual consumeristic gift-giving-athon and instead gift our time to our well-deserving clients.

Ideas like helping at the Auckland City Mission or buying gifts from a charitable catalogue were floated, but in the end, we settled on cleaning up a beach, gifting our time (16 hours approx!) to help care for our magical floating space rock and all on behalf of our wonderful clients.

Arriving at Pt Chev Beach with rubbish bags on hand, enclosed shoes on and with gloves to protect our precious hands we felt ready to take on our mission – collect as much rubbish as possible! After a good old slip, slop slap (#sunsafety) and a health and safety briefing we set out on our mission.

Though the area looked relatively clean on first look, we discovered that most of the finds turned out to be mostly tiny pieces – it was like the beach had already been combed for the more obvious rubbish. It wasn’t until we slowed down and sifted through that we noticed the well-camouflaged bits hidden amongst the sand and leaves. After we had scoured the beach, with our rubbish sacks nowhere near overflowing, we decided to also cover the park, the paths and the banks.

Not only was it lovely to get out into the sun and fresh air for an afternoon, the time at the beach was made even more worthwhile by the (eventual) volume of trash recovered. Saving the dolphins while strolling along a beautiful NZ beach – what better combo is there?

Plus we received some encouraging comments from our beloved clients…
“I really appreciated the Christmas prezzie. It was really thoughtful and I appreciated the gesture. We always plan on doing things like this but are not always able to make them happen. So when you and your team actually did a cleanup on your clients’ behalf, it was just the best!”

“Also, we just received your Christmas card! LOVE IT! This is WHY we love your company, just made our day that you did a beach clean up. Awesome! x”

Here’s the final stock-take (requested by Sustainable Coastlines):
137 cigarette butts
82 metal bottle caps
67 pieces of unidentified hard plastic
62 pieces of paper
59 soft plastic
43 pieces foil
41 broken glass pieces
35 food packaging plastic
12 plastic bottle caps
9 bottles (2 plastic, 7 glass)
6 can rings
6 metal cans
5 wooden popsicle sticks
5 hair ties
4 rubber balloons
4 pieces polystyrene
3 plastic toys
3 corks
3 pegs
3 rubber bands
2 tennis balls
2 plastic bags
2 plasters
2 strings
2 pencils
1 small gas canister (metal)
1 cigarette lighter
1 firework
1 metal screw
1 pair of shorts
1 sock
1 pair of jandals
1 makeup wipe (fabric)
1 snaplock bag
1 felt-tip pen
1 lip balm