Last Friday, November 20, Wānaka Primary School teacher Markus Hermanns organised a clean-up along the lakefront between the Wānaka Marina and Pembroke Park with 21 of his year 5 and 6 students, accompanied by Chris Arbuckle from The Touchstone Project and local grebe expert John Darby.

This was part of the Healthier Kids Sea Cleaners programme, created by Nestlé New Zealand in partnership with Kiwi non-profit organisation Sea Cleaners, which the school signed up to in November. 

“All the children that attended certainly enjoyed the beach clean-up, mainly because they realised very quickly what a difference they made by cleaning up all this rubbish from our lake shore,” said Hermanns. 

“They loved to have Chris Arbuckle with us to talk about the lake flora and fauna and also John Darby, who joined us to talk about the grebes project in particular. “Everyone was raving about this experience and already asked to do it again soon.”

Hermanns said the key takeaway from the day had been there was an “immense amount of rubbish and litter” along the waterfront, although not always visible to passersby.

“We collected four big bags of rubbish plus four car tyres in close proximity to our lake,” he said. 

The children learnt about the effect this was having on the local flora and fauna, as well as the water.

“They saw in detail that ducks and birds like the grebes use the rubbish to build their nests. They noticed that people use the easy accessibility of the Yacht Club and Wānaka Marina to dispose of rubbish, like the four old tyres and various building materials. They analysed the rubbish and found out that the majority of the rubbish is plastic that we can't recycle or reuse, food wrappers and single use plastic in particular.”

The SeaCleaners programme aims to educate young Kiwis about how their individual actions can have a positive impact on the planet, while providing tools and resources to help them tackle the rubbish problem currently plaguing waterways. 

Read edition 1003 of the Wānaka Sun here.

​​​​​​​