1380kg of waste removed in river clean up

Shopping trolleys, tyres, an armchair and even a small section of broken headstone were among 1380 kilogrammes of rubbish collected from Whangarei’s Hatea River recently by local authority staff doing their bit for ‘Clean Up NZ Week’.

About a dozen Northland Regional Council staff spent several hours on Friday clearing up about lengthy stretches of the river from Victoria Bridge down to the Northland Events Centre.

As well as removing rubbish from the river’s edges, several staff in a council workboat also retrieved some waste from the river itself.

Along with the shopping trolleys and tyres often encountered in such clean ups, council staff also recovered an armchair and even a broken section of old headstone, slightly smaller than an A4 sheet of paper.

The recovered rubbish was transported to the Puwera landfill, whose operators agreed to dispose of it as part of the Clean Up NZ Week initiative.