July has seen Dutton Stormwater attain another proud milestone. We have finalised our sponsorship of Sustainable Coastlines, a registered New Zealand charity doing incredible work which all Kiwis benefit from.

The protection of our natural environment is at the heart of Dutton’s company values, and we want to do all we can to achieve this. Sustainable Coastlines is on a mission to take better care of our coastlines and waterways. The Visions of both parties have an align – Both love the coasts and oceans, and want them litter free.

Sustainable Coastlines is a New Zealand charity that exists to protect the moana we all love by bringing people together to reduce plastic pollution and other litter.

Their goal is to see 60% less litter on the coastlines of Aotearoa New Zealand by 2030. They intend to achieve this by empowering communities to take action for their local beach through coastal clean-up events, educational programmes, public awareness campaigns, and litter data collection.

Since Sustainable Coastlines began in 2009, their volunteers have removed more than 1.7 million litres of litter from coastlines across Aotearoa. Most commonly, that litter includes things like food wrappers, polystyrene, rope, bottle tops, and cigarette butts. Removing this harmful litter from our marine environment makes for happier ecosystems and healthier wildlife.

But to stop the flow of plastic pollution and other litter to our coastlines, we need to look upstream. When people attend a beach clean-up and see the problem first-hand, it sparks behaviour change. Alongside the changes people can make in their everyday lives, Sustainable Coastlines enables people to ask the right questions and take action to influence broader change.

Litter data collection is a big part of this. We know there’s a problem, but having specifics about the litter in our waterways, our stormwater drains, and on our beaches helps people make decisions about where to focus their efforts. This is why Sustainable Coastlines is proud to deliver Litter Intelligence, Aotearoa’s first national litter database, which enables citizen scientists to collect litter data at their local beach. This data is available for anyone to use, and the charity works with communities, schools, businesses, councils, and government to inspire change in behaviour, policy, and practices to improve the litter problem in the places we love.

We are particularly interested in the “Love Your Coast” programmes, which target marine litter through beach clean-ups and education. Hundreds of passionate people pick up tonnes of litter which has reached the coast. However, there is a ribbon of catchment just beyond the beach awaiting the next rain. Gathered in the silt and sediments from our roads are fine pollutants, which settle in the stormwater catch pit drains in the street gutters. They contain lead, zinc, copper and other heavy pollutants. These are the invisible “nasties” which often cause our beach closures and harm our marine life.

Part of the Dutton Stormwater support of Sustainable Coastlines vision is to provide the technical expertise and equipment to assist with cleaning up these drains closest to the target beaches. We will be supplying trucks and crew to specific events to provide some heavy lifting and support beyond the beach. This is to ensure the hard work of all the people doing the clean-ups is not undone in the next downfall, and that we are all working to our strengths to meet our shared vision of protecting our waterways, beaches and oceans.

If you have an interest in supporting Sustainable Coastlines in their mission, please contact steph@sustainablecoastlines.org, or at 0274 912058.

Most importantly, let’s all do the small things in our daily life to ensure our stormwater runoff is as clean and litter free as possible.

Eventually, it all drains to the ocean.