Make a difference and join the ‘Clean Up Whitianga’ Day 2023

New Zealand’s Clean up Week

The annual community pride initiative from Keep New Zealand Beautiful inspires businesses, schools, community/youth groups and individuals to actively participate in cleaning up their little part of Aotearoa New Zealand.

As part of the week-long event, local community group Wāhi Tukurua (Mercury Bay Resource Recovery Centre Trust) will be hosting a clean up event based at Buffalo Beach Reserve on Saturday 16th September at 9.30am. This is a community event with anyone from the Mercury Bay area are welcome to join by registering online or by contacting Wāhi Tukurua directly. 

We’re really excited to be coordinating this local event in Whitianga as part of the nationwide Keep NZ Beautiful Week. This event will be a great opportunity to meet new people, connect with our beautiful outdoors and engage in positive solutions to help protect our local environment ecosystems. We encourage individuals, friends and families to come along and spend some time with us to clean up our little corner of Aotearoa. 

– Tiffany Reed, Event organiser Wāhi Tukurua

Litter is a problem for New Zealand

Clean Up Week is New Zealand's largest movement against litter. This nationwide initiative focuses the community's attention on how much litter is polluting our environment, with volunteers last year helping to remove over 655 tonnes of litter nationwide, across an area equivalent to 5,751 rugby fields.

Litter as a problem can seem small when you come across a piece here and there walking through your local neighbourhood, but collectively it’s a huge issue nationally, not only to our environment, but also to biodiversity, our own health and climate future.

– Heather Saunderson - Keep New Zealand Beautiful CEO  

Keep New Zealand Beautiful encourages families, schools, businesses, community and youth groups, or even just individuals to 'Be a Tidy Kiwi' and ‘Do the Right Thing’, get together, get involved and make a difference in their local community.

Saunderson says this year the organisation is pushing for all participants to take a climate conscious approach to Clean Up Week by encouraging them to organise their own reusable and sustainable clean up kits using everyday items such as buckets and gardening gloves. 

With the help of the Mars Wrigley Foundation, free reusable clean up kits will be available on request for ECEs, schools, youth groups, Keep New Zealand Beautiful Community and Educational branches, Individual/Family and Not-for-Profit members who don't have access to their own clean up materials, and haven’t requested a kit before. People can also purchase reusable clean up kit resources at a cost from Keep New Zealand Beautiful's online shop.

Clean Up Week is supported in partnership with Waste Management, Enviro NZ and some councils, who provide participants with the opportunity to dispose of the rubbish they collect for free at selected transfer stations. 

To learn more about the event in Whitianga, please see Clean Up Whitianga on our events pages.