Millions of mussels rejected from supermarket supply are being used to help boost water quality and marine life in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf.
Over the last two weeks, the Mussel Reef Restoration Trust has seeded about 3.5 million live adult mussels across an area the size of eight rugby fields.
The drops are part of the trust's flagship project Revive Our Gulf, which the trust says is the world's first attempt to restore green-lipped mussel reefs. It follows a successful trial earlier in the year.
Mussel beds once covered vast swathes of the Firth of Thames and Tamaki Strait but were ripped up by commercial fishing boats and poachers, with the fishery eventually collapsing in the 1960s.