Everything and the kitchen sink found on beaches

Persistent culprits revealed in last weekend's big coastal clean-up are white plastic lollipop sticks and cigarette butts - not to mention a kitchen sink.

More than 500 people turned out last Sunday to clean up the Wellington coastline, including city beaches and Porirua and Hutt coastlines.

So far over 500 big black bags of rubbish have been collected, and they are still coming in. Myfanwy Emeny says the rubbish is being audited at Lyall Bay by Auckland-based charity Sustainable Coastlines to see exactly what is ending up on the beaches. Old tyres - so far about two tonnes worth - television sets, road cones and all sorts of large and small items of rubbish were collected on Sunday.

"We even found a kitchen sink on Wellington's south coast," she said. "There is so much rubbish, they are only auditing about 20 percent of it, but that will still give us a good picture of what the rubbish is. 

Then we can work out where the rubbish is coming from and try to stop it before it reaches our coast."
She said Sustainable Coastlines is planning to complete the audit next week and tally up the rubbish.