Littered takeout containers enough to fill 25 rugby fields, study finds

Tuesday, 3 September 2019

Nappies dumped around New Zealand would fill 158 Olympic-sized swimming pools, a litter audit has found.

In a six-month National Litter Audit, surveyors scoured 413 areas covering a total area of 477,349 square metres.

As well as nappies there were enough takeaway containers littered around the country to fill 25 rugby fields and more than 10 billion cigarette butts.

Keep New Zealand Beautiful (KNZB) chief executive Heather Saunderson said the finding on disposable nappies was revealing.   

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'These are not people you and I would imagine as a litterer … they're mums and dads,' Saunderson said. 'As parents, our children emulate what we do, and so that's disheartening.' 

Saunderson said better awareness meant people would notice litter, and prevent it.   

'If you look down, you will see it. If you're in a beautiful, pristine part of the bush, look down, it's there.'  

At the audit's release in Auckland on Tuesday, many were shocked at the visualisations created by extrapolated data, including the illegal dumping across the length of the country being enough to fill 2123 railway carriages. 

The audit found there was likely more than 10b cigarette butts littered across New Zealand - about 2142 per person. 

'We need to galvanise the cigarette industry to make a product that works,' Saunderson said. 

Packaging New Zealand executive director Sharon Humphreys said the audit opened up a new level of conversation between institutions in New Zealand.

'[KNZB] not only gives us a baseline to measure future initiatives from, but allows us to draw a line in the sand and respond as a collective to hard facts.

'This is the litter situation in New Zealand as it is at the moment; the question is, what can we do as a nation to improve it?'

Associate environment minister Eugenie Sage said the audit's data, compiled from February to July,  would help identify where policy changes were needed, and where investment was required.

'It helps us shift to a circular economy, where we focus on designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use longer, and restoring and being restored by nature.'

​Saunderson said KNZB was seeking partnerships with sustainable industry bodies to move towards new product types.  

It had already partnered with DB Breweries, however the details of the partnership were not yet released. 

Future campaigns targeting waste and litter needed to be distributed at a local level, not just a national level, she said.  

Cigarette butts were most frequently littered item with 39 butts collected per 1000sqm, however they were associated with the smallest litter volumes.  Plastic items were the runner up, with 29 pieces found per 1000sqm. 

Plastic drink lids, lollypop sticks and an array of plastic pieces are dropped around Wellington every day, according to the people cleaning it all up. 

For Petone Beach Clean Up coordinator Lorraine Shaab it's nothing new - she once collected 620 plastic caps in 90 minutes.

Shaab saw the impact of litter on her local beaches everywhere but, despite more attention being drawn to waste and plastic, the country's litter problem was getting worse.

'People's mentality is slow to change.' 

​Shaab said litter in Petone and Seaview was so bad her volunteers could clean full time. 

Cigarette butts were commonplace on Petone beaches, she said. 'There would be a rubbish bin right there, but people just park up and drop them.' 

Saunderson said to understand litter trends, audits would be repeated every two to three years.

Clean Up Week runs from this Sunday and Saunderson encouraged everyone to get involved. ' It's clear it is more important than ever.'