It was the 30th of March, 9:30 a.m when our Atea Syndicate headed off to our yearly coastal clean up. This year we travelled by bus to Norana Park, Manukau Harbour because it was full of disgusting garbage that kills our poor animals who mistakenly take it for food.
As we arrived to our destination, I recognised the area from when I was young, I used fish with my dad and my uncles over there all the time. It was sad to see that a place where I first learnt how to fish, part of my childhood was filled with all kinds of trash, but that’s what pushed me more to help clean the environment, so that one day it won’t be so polluted and that other people might have a great childhood like mine.
We hopped off the bus and met Jody, the lady who helped and guided us through the cleaning process. Once she was done talking about the whole process, she handed us gloves and a rubbish bag and that’s when we finally commenced our annual coastal clean up. We had to be in a group of six before we could start but there was no other girls left so it was only Mafu and I who was in our group.
Mafu and I started off on the field, we discovered all different kinds of rubbish which were chip packets, plastic, glass bottles, bottle caps and beer boxes.We made our way down to where all the bushes were and that’s where all the rubbish was. Mafu and I had to go really deep inside those thick bushes, man it smelt polluting, but the outcome was WORST! There was big fizzy bottles, nappies, plastic bags, beer bottles, beer boxes, beer cans, smoke buds, shoes and many more.
Although we were the last ones, I was surprised that no one found all the garbage Mafu and I found.After a long time searching for rubbish we took a break on a parking lot with all the other students, teachers and Jody.
As we were making our way back to the buses, I noticed a big area of land, big enough to build a house, but there was so much of rubbish over there, it looked like a dump. I asked Jody what was going to happen to that area but she replied ¨ The builders are just going to put dirt all over it and build a house¨ I wanted to clean up that piece of land so badly, but I was not allowed because it was a private area.
My conversation with Jody went on and on until we reached the buses, since we worked very hard we got to have our lunch, some of us even got rewarded with fantastic prizes like water bottles and delicious smelling body wash and we also took a nice group photo with Jody. After a long exhausting day we finally headed back to school.
The coastal clean up was fun and although it was very tiring we all knew it was for a good and very important cause, to help keep our environment nice and tidy.
Val-Marie
Media Leader
Room 11 Year 8
