Every piece of litter tells a story about the pressure our coasts face, and this summer a team of Northland Regional Council interns helped uncover those stories one beach at a time. Marking out transects and picking up everything from bottle caps to fragments of plastic, they weren’t just collecting data, but protecting the places Northlanders love most. Their work shows how simple, consistent monitoring can spark real change and shows that anyone with a passion for the moana can play a part in keeping it healthy for future generations.

Lucy Graham was working with Coastal Science and Coastal Biodiversity, as a complement to her Bachelor of Applied Science studies. Her Coastal Science brief saw her out and about across Taitokerau contributing to the NRC’s dune monitoring and coastal litter monitoring programmes.

Coastal litter monitoring was carried out by the interns at beaches around the rohe (region), including Paihia, Bayleys Beach, Matapouri, Ahipara and Sandys Bay. The monitoring provides important data on the scale and nature of litter found at our popular recreational beaches.

Litter threatens ecosystems by harming wildlife through ingestion and entanglement, degrading habitats and releasing toxic chemicals as it breaks down.

Beach litter surveys start with a site risk assessment before marking out a 100 metre transect along the high tide line and marking out an area 10 metre each side of the transect line.

Lucy and her fellow interns then collected all litter within the transect, walking the area several times. Some items are excluded for health and safety reasons, including sanitary items and plasters. Also excluded are any dangerous or over-sized items, or organic refuse like driftwood or fish bones.

Once the survey is complete the litter is bagged and brought back to NRCs lab. It’s sorted into categories, like food wrappers, fishing gear, cigarette butts and bottle caps, and each category’s count and weight are recorded. There can be challenges in weighing very light or ambiguous items and safety concerns around hazardous items.

NRC records its results online with Litter Intelligence, a long-term programme that collects litter data, provides insights and aims to inspire actions for a litter-free world.  This year 18 sites were surveyed and a total of 2,137 litter items found, with 75% off all items being made of plastic.  The highest amount of litter was found at Bayleys Beach on Northland’s west coast with 655 items recorded along the 100m transect.   

Litter monitoring isn’t just for councils; individuals and communities can get involved too.  You can set up your own beach survey site and upload data to the Litter intelligence website. If you prefer to join a group, local beach cleans are regularly organised by Coastcare groups or community groups like F.O.R.C.E  in Whangārei district and the Ocean Mind project, in the Bay of Islands. 

See information on NRC's coastal litter monitoring programme: nrc.govt.nz/coastallitter

To see results of recent surveys go to: litterintelligence.org

For information about Coastcare and how to get involved, visit: nrc.govt.nz/coastcare