Getting messages to youngsters about the dangers of litter going into drains is the best way to stop millions of pieces of plastic going into Whangārei’s waterways and ultimately the sea every year, an environmentalist says.

New research shows that every year, millions of items of litter – mainly plastics – are washed into the sea around Northland through the stormwater system.

It’s something Whitebait Connection’s Northland co-ordinator Nicholas Naysmith says is a sad indictment on the region, but something that can easily be avoided.

A staggering 21,006 items of litter – with more than 70 per cent plastic – has been stopped from reaching Northland’s coastal environment in the past year from traps installed at 51 sites across the region.

The LittaTraps, a net which fits inside stormwater grates and captures litter, were installed at 51 sites around Northland in late 2020 and monitored quarterly for a year.

Plastic accounted for 71.1 per cent of the total waste collected in the traps, with cigarette butts and filters the most common single items – a whopping 6887 collected over the year.

The project to protect Northland’s waterways is part of a multi-agency response led by Northland Regional Council and also involves the region’s three district councils, Te Whatu Ora – Te Tai Tokerau and local businesses.

Dr Manue Martinez from Maunga to Moana (M2M) Consulting said the highest volume of rubbish was at a Whangārei city centre carpark, which captured a total of 2172 items in 12 months, the equivalent of 352 items per hectare per day.

“This amount of waste over the duration of a year would lead to a total of 128,480 items per hectare per year – that’s a lot of rubbish just being dumped on the ground,” Martinez said.

Much would then go into the city’s stormwater system and subsequently the sea.

NRC’s coastal scientist Richard Griffiths estimates almost six million litter items are released into Whangārei Harbour from the Whangārei stormwater network every year, the vast majority being plastics.

“The best thing Northlanders can do to prevent rubbish from making its way to the sea via our stormwater systems is simply not dropping litter in the street in the first place,” Griffiths said.

Discarded plastic items like drink bottles and cigarette butts will break down into smaller and smaller pieces over time. These smaller items are potentially more dangerous to marine animals and much harder to clean up.

Naysmith said Whitebait Connection was involved in installing the traps, and would love to be able to put one on every drain in Northland, but did not have the staff or funding to do so.

Whitebait Connection had been running its Drains To Harbour (DTH) programme to empower schools and communities by providing hands-on experiences in the environment, and educating them on what happens to litter after it goes down the drain.

After these experiences, students are encouraged to put their knowledge into action within the community.

But, Naysmith said, this stopped during Covid and had not restarted, due to lack of funding and resources.

He said getting youngsters aware of what happens to a bit of litter when it goes into the stormwater system was crucial to stopping the problem worsening in the future.

”Getting the younger generation involved is an important part of the process. It’s about making them aware early so they think about their actions, and it encourages them to dispose of their rubbish in the right places.”

Naysmith said many adults appear not to be aware that their litter went into the sea, as he regularly sees people smoking in the street and then flicking their butt into the nearest drain.

”They obviously don’t realise that it then goes into the stormwater system, into the nearest waterway and then into the sea. Would I love to have a LittaTrap on every drain in Northland? Yes. Would I love to have DTH into every school in Northland? Yes. But sadly we just don’t have enough people and resources at the moment to do so.”

Naysmith said everybody could do their bit by ensuring they did not drop litter and picking up any litter they see around.