Waitemata Harbour Cleanup Trust

Introduction | Member's of the trust | What the trust does | Litter volumes and types | How you can help

The Waitemata Harbour, meaning "sparkling waters" is located in the North Island of New Zealand and is the focal point of the Auckland region, which has a population of 1.3 million. The Waitemata Harbour with its many beaches and tidal rivers, opens into the Hauraki Gulf, which is dotted with islands formed by volcanic activity.

Every year millions of New Zealanders and overseas visitors enjoy the sparkling waters and fantastic shorelines of the Waitemata Harbour. The harbour is used for recreation, shipping, fishing and tourism and hosted the America's Cup yacht races in 1999 and 2003.

The idea to form a trust to deal with rubbish entering the Waitemata Harbour, was the brainchild of boating enthusiasts Waitakere City Mayor, Bob Harvey and Mr Hayden Smith. They observed increasing amounts of rubbish making its way to sea via roadways and stormwater channels often clogging up streams and estuaries along the way.

With the support of councils like Auckland City and corporate sponsorship, funding was obtained to commission a company to raise awareness about litter issues and to carry out litter removal in the inner gulf. The Ports of Auckland provided a 6.5 metre boat, the Phil Warren, for litter retrieval and removal. The boat was named in recognition of the environmental initiatives led by the late Phil Warren while he was chairperson of the Auckland Regional Council.

Since November 2002, we have collected over 615,700 litres of litter during 6332.5 hours of operation. The number of Volunteer hours used is 10,752 with the total amount of litter collected by Volunteers being 132,950 litres.

Waitemata Harbour

Reviewed - July 2006