Sea Cleaners celebrate and reflect on 20 years

On December 6, our community partner Sea Cleaners celebrated 20 years of cleaning Aotearoa New Zealand’s oceans of marine litter.

The Coca-Cola Foundation has provided more than $300,000NZD annually since 2018 to Sea Cleaners to support its efforts to collect more rubbish from our waterways.

Sea Cleaners Founder and Captain Hayden Smith had this to say:

“Twenty years in, Sea Cleaners has four full-time boats working in Aotearoa’s oceans to retrieve litter and clean the waterways. We have removed over 14 million litres of rubbish from the ocean, and we’re adding five and a half shipping containers full to that figure every month.

“We’ve seen big shifts in people’s understanding about rubbish in our oceans. Partners like The Coca-Cola Foundation have come on board to help us put more boats in the water with more full-time staff, and we’ve expanded our presence around Aotearoa.

“We’ve made a lot of progress, but there is still much to do. That’s why, even 20 years in, we still measure every day in bags of rubbish removed from the water – this isn’t the kind of problem you can solve overnight with a silver bullet, it takes consistent effort every day.”

Read the full article here or find out more about the incredible work Sea Cleaners do on their website.