47 volunteers turned out on Saturday 26th February for our first activity for 2022. 37 of these split into six groups to clean up Prom beaches – Norman Bay, Squeaky/Picnic/Whisky Bays, Darby beach, Cotters beach, Shallow Inlet off Hourigans Lane and Five-Mile beach. Each group returned to base with their own adventures to relate and laden with bags bulging with rubbish. After it was sorted, counted, weighed and recorded for the Tangaroa Blue Foundation, the tally for the day was 120 kg of rubbish collected. 

Possibly because of the persistent easterlies this summer, Five Mile Beach had the most rubbish with 66 kg collected. While western beaches such as Cotters gave up much less rubbish than usual. As in other years, the types of rubbish found ranged from tiny scraps of plastic to large immoveable items which had to be left behind.

The other 10 volunteers remained behind to build tree-guards. They finished with a record daily tally of 64 guards completed – 134 down, 66 to go.