Thirty volunteers from all over the Bay of Islands gave up Saturday morning to pick up bottles, cans, fast food wrappers, coffee cups and car parts, much of it flung out the windows of cars along State Highway 11.
The clean-up, organised by Bay Beach Clean, targeted 6km of highway between Te Haumi and the Opua turnoff and netted an estimated 4cu m of rubbish in less than two hours.
Most of the trash found could have been taken to a recycling station without charge.
The volunteer clean-up followed a public outcry over the state of SH11 sparked by a first-time visitor's impressions on social media and revelations that contractors' clean-ups had been suspended over health and safety concerns.
