Karen Lee and Nicholas Connop at the Keep New Zealand Beautiful prize-giving in Dunedin on October 24. Photos / Love Whangārei Monthly Clean Up Facebook page
Karen Lee and Nicholas Connop at the Keep New Zealand Beautiful prize-giving in Dunedin on October 24. Photos / Love Whangārei Monthly Clean Up Facebook page
A Whangārei clean-up group has taken out a national community award for their efforts to rid their neighbourhood of rubbish.
In the two years since their inauguration, community-led charity For Our Real Clean Environment (FORCE) have picked up about 13 tons of rubbish and now received recognition by Keep New Zealand Beautiful with the 2019 Community Group Award.
The annual awards were announced in Dunedin on Thursday night with 15 other initiatives taking home a prize.
"The selected finalists have each demonstrated bold leadership in implementing innovative sustainable projects that help reduce their environmental footprint and build resilient towns and cities," KNZB's chief executive Heather Saunderson said.
"These towns and cities are truly leading the way in tackling a variety of environmental issues, and we believe that their call to action will inspire others to create change."
FORCE was launched in September 2017 and is supported by several Whangārei businesses as well as the Whangārei District Council.
FORCE co-coordinators Karen Lee and newly elected Whangārei District councillor Nicholas Connop were excited by the announcement saying the award would acknowledge all volunteers who helped protect our "amazing nature".
Connop said while FORCE would continue their monthly clean-ups, they wanted to empower more individuals and communities to look after their local environment.
Lee added they wanted to launch a workshop to provide people tools for up-cycling or repairing items that might otherwise end up in landfill.
The couple were also finalists in the Tidy Kiwi award, which was won by Alan Pope of the Hutt City Council. He collected 22,000 tons of rubbish over 22 years.
The FORCE clean-ups attract on average 35 volunteers – mostly local residents – who pick up rubbish and recycle what they salvage.
Since Connop and Lee connect their events with Geocaching, travellers and people from the wider Northland and Auckland area occasionally join in.
"When we first started our clean-ups, we began with places Nick [Connop] saw when he was working as a gardener for Recreational Services," Lee said.
"We then asked people on Facebook to tell us where the rubbish is. A lot have people have reached out to us."
Lee said for their event in October, Tikipunga Kindergarten had asked them to help clean up the bush behind their local supermarket so the children could use the area safely. The volunteers ended up collecting 400kg of rubbish.
Nicholas Connop and FORCE volunteers during their October clean-up at Tikipunga Kindergarten.
Most of the waste FORCE finds are bottles and takeaway wrappers; however different areas accumulate different kinds of rubbish, Connop said.
"We also find a lot of cigarette butts. Because they are so small and insignificant people don't think much about it when they throw them out, but they can release toxic chemicals into the ground," he said.
Last year, Keep New Zealand Beautiful volunteers from around the country picked up a total of 51,215,472 cigarette butts.
Contrary to popular belief, cigarette filters are not made of cotton but a form of plastic called cellulose acetate, which can take up to 10 years to decompose. Its toxins can leach into the ground and waterways and damage living organisms.
"We sometimes even find historic trash, like old coke bottles from the 80s that haven't been picked up for 40 years," Connop said.
Connop said while clean-ups might not sound appealing to everyone, the volunteers usually had fun during the events as they got to engage with a diverse range of community members.
FORCE post their monthly events of the Love Whangārei Monthly Clean Up Facebook page. The next clean-up is scheduled for November 16.
