A plastic pollution story

Reiner Schoenbrunn

The Tauherenikau River flooded in August 2021 and silage cover and baling wrap was eroded from a private dumpsite and washed down the river and much of it into Moana Wairarapa. This was featured by reporter P Fuller in Stuff on 2 Feb 2022 and possibly Facebook. The newspaper article featured, showed that GWRC had tried to do a river cleanup but discontinued it for health and safety reasons.

Roger Wale, a local, also removed plastic but had no support from agencies, having to pay for disposal himself and gave up. About 250kg of material was left to rot all over our precious lake reserve. Hanging in trees, tangled around driftwood, buried in sand.

I discovered the plastic in the wetlands and on shore of Moana in December 2022 and emailed Adrienne Staples in January 2023. We met at Town & Country and discussed it. None of the agencies (GWRC SWDC DoC Iwi) all responsible for Moana, could do anything to help. Lots of emails and meetings but no action.

I got frustrated with that and started removing plastic myself. All summer, every free day, bag by bag. Thanks to Roger Wale and Rodney Liast for helping when they could. No help from any agency, except free collection from my house by Earthcare and City Care paid by SWDC. There’s more to collect right now but wintery conditions have prevented me from doing so.

NZ signed the Ramsar Convention in December 1976 and Moana Wairarapa is one of 17 wetlands in Aotearoa listed which need caring for. But are we really doing that?