The 2013 Marine Report Cards are in. These report cards are awesome. We have dropped from a D to an E. The water quality and ecology have gotten worse, but this has inspired TEEF who plan to get more active. Yay!
Nurdles
Nurdles are pre-production microplastic pellets about the size of peas. Plastics companies melt them down to make stuff and sometimes they flush them away. Because they are Hydrophobic nasty chemicals like PCBs and DDE latch on to them, which would be cool but unforuntately they look like food and animals eat them and die. (details). I am collecting these ones in Pakuranga Creek to send to Japan for Analysis via www.pelletwatch.org
These Nurdles are likely from a local plastic manufacturing company. I will take some photos and let them know. 
Update: I checked the storm water pipes that the plastics company uses and I found no Nurdles at all! They must be coming from somewhere else. Other storm water pipes in the area seem clean, there is something suspicious about the original outlet, there are too many different kinds of pallet for them to come from one spill.
Pakuranga Creek
Found this trash pile here whilst exploring the Pakuranga creek. Will let the Watercare Harbour Clean-Up Trust guys know about it and offer to help.
UPDATE We did, 11 Garbage bags of trash. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in a month or so to see how fast stuff is building up.
Watercare Harbour Clean-Up Trust
Today I went out on the Watercare Harbour Clean-Up Trust boat. We set off at a leisurely pace from downtown auckland in a rugged little boat (they are getting a new one next month) and headed under the Harbour Bridge out to the entrance to the Whau river. We kayaked over to Pollen Island and in just a few hours filled 9 bags with plastic before heading back. Amongst the expected bottles, bags and wrappers we also found:
- One of those really old coke bottles with the removable black base
- Lots of balls and kids toys
- Fishing gear
- x4 Syringes (Needles)
- A geo-cache
- x2 LPG Canisters
These guys have been doing this for 10 years and made a huge difference to the health of the Harbour. There is still a lot of historical waste to remove but we desperately need better source control. Interestingly they would prefer plastic to break down slower so it is easier to collect and remove. I left a lot of toxic little bits in the sand and rushes. I am looking forward to heading out again with Skipper Ben and hopefully the organiser Hayden Smith who are both awesome guys.
Walking
In trying to understand why the estuary is so sick I have been exploring it, mostly on foot but some areas are easier to get to by Kayak.
Organic rubbish collection
While I was watering the dying trees on Omaru Creek (please rain soon) I noticed people were putting out their trash for the local in-organic rubbish collection. So I hauled a bunch of stuff out of the water. Some of it was so rusted it must have been in there for years. The pile was bigger but some of the stuff I found in the bush (bike parts) got picked up by some collectors (sweet!).
UPDATE: Inspired by the recyclers my son and I just pulled out about 60kgs of rusting steel from below the high tide line. I would have photographed my pile of fencing mesh, corrugated iron and shopping trollies but they picked it up so fast!
Removed 25 TVs from Tamaki estuary
I decided not to wait for the council to get these out. It looks like a scrap dealer threw them over the cliff at Wai O Taiki Nature Reserve years ago and they have been leaking poison into the estuary ever since.
How I found them, tho most of them were covered in the mud (yes that is a dead dog).
In the other trash at the bottom of the cliff someone left me an old tent which I was able to use as a tarp to keep my car clean.
They did not want them at the local e-waste collection day but they said I could take them down to upcycle.co.nz during the week, this is all of them on a trailer.
Upcycle were so awesome! They were happy to recycle the TVs for me even tho they would normally charge someone $250 for this much waste. And thats if the TVs are in good condition with valuable parts (these have been stripped). They were just as happy as me to see them out of our estuary, what heroes!