Inorganic
clean up.
The Rangitoto/Motutapu Island inorganic
clean up.
February 12th - 25th 2002
As you can see from the included letter we have indeed done great things. To bring you all up-to-date - everything we removed from the island weighed a whopping 30700kgs, that's just over 30 tonne! The bins weighed 6.06, 4.72, 5.26, 5.28, and 5.96 tonne each. The glass weighed in at 2.79 tonne! Altogether it was 160m3 and if you look at the picture to the right you can see how it left Islington Bay on Monday the 25th of February. By the way we totally underestimated how much rubbish there was on both islands and we didn't clean up everything on Rangitoto and DoC have still the bunkers to finish on Motutapu!
The
Trust must thank all the sponsors - Auckland Regional Council
Environmental Initiatives Fund for the barge, Zero Waste
Trust for the safety gear, Trillian Trust for the equipment
hire, Rex Wheels and Castors for the trolley, Hirepool and
Hiretown for the wheel barrows, Fullers for discounting
the tickets and ARC for discounting the tickets even further
and the Department of Conservation for the second barge
trip. Last but not least all the volunteers - some of whom
were inveigled under false pretences - ask Lynfield College
about that one, some who used it to gain hours for service
certificates, others who felt it was just the right thing
to do - without you all this could not have been done. Also
the DoC staff, which gave up weekdays and weekends to see
it through - thank you every one, give yourselves a pat
on the back.
There
were some wonderful stories that happened during the clean-up
- like the feather mattress that caught alight and smoldered
away, the old mattress that had been growing, so when it
was moved Kevin and Sarah literally wore it. The un-named
volunteer her shut her fingers in the car door before coming
and still carried lots of rubbish. Heike, a visitor to NZ
who was guaranteed a great Kiwi experience. The trip back
on Mike Morris boat - it was a great deal faster than the
ferry! Water tanks - I don't think anyone had seen so many
water tanks or indeed roofing iron - see the picture on
the right and to top it all off, CAR BODIES!
And the method used to crush the tanks and turn them into
tinfoil was strictly kiwi ingenuity. Some on the treasure
that was found - whale oil, gramophone needles, wooden cheese
graters and some that got away 1940's janola bottles - that
wont happen again.
