On Tuesday the 30th March the Year 11 and 12 Geography classes went on a fieldtrip to Anderson’s Bay Inlet, Ravensbourne, Aramoana and Blackhead to research plastics and the extent to which waste was ending up on our beaches.

The plan was to measure 200m along each beach and look carefully for any rubbish that was there. We had specific categories for the waste collected.

Anderson’s Bay inlet was still by far the worst with over 219 pieces of rubbish jammed into the rocks and vegetation, however this was down on the total from 2020 and may be indicative of a reduction in single use plastics. The plastic bag ban seems to be working as we found zero plastic bags across the 4 study zones. Also we did not find any McDonalds straws!! In the past we found a lot. This is hopefully due to the swap to paper straws. Aramoana was next on the trip and we found 92 pieces of rubbish that had been brought in with the tide. Blackhead was still pretty bad with over 166 pieces of waste. Clearly people are still dumping waste from the car park.

The students are using their data to complete a 5 credit research assignment on what is the most common form of rubbish found on Otago’s coastline. There was slightly less rubbish this year with 620 pieces of rubbish collected. This compares to 690 pieces found in 2020. The message continues to be dispose of your waste properly! 

Overall the students found this an eye opening experience and the trip has changed some of the student’s viewpoints about what is clean and green and what is not.