Saturday is World Oceans Day, with governments and organisations across the globe celebrating our seas - and condemning the problem of plastics in them.
Supermarket company Foodstuffs is hoping to stop some of the litter flow - by fitting its car park drains with litter traps.
- NZ oceans world's worst for birds eating plastic
- We ingest hundreds of pieces of plastic every day, study finds
- 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic litter Earth's oceans
"We've recognised we could do a better job in our car parks in terms of what gets washed down the drain," says Foodstuffs' sustainability manager Mike Sammons.
A trial programme will fit stormwater traps into drains in Foodstuffs supermarket car parks across the North Island - catching litter before it enters the water.
"On average a year, you get 5000 plastic items washed down the drain in a carpark," Sammons says.
The UN estimates 13-million tonnes of plastic leak into the oceans every year.
Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage says the biggest culprits are soft plastics like food wrappers - and cigarette butts.
"One litter trap in one grate in Beresford Street in Auckland, over ten months, stopped 2000 cigarette butts getting into the Waitemata Harbour," she says.
Made by Auckland company Stormwater360, 125 traps will be installed at eleven New World or PAK'nSAVE stores, all of them reasonably close to an ocean, lake, or river.
"That's where they're gonna have the most impact, and have the most benefit, the litter traps," says Sammons.
Organic waste like leaves will be composted, with the plastic sent to landfill.
"This is one way of stopping some of it. If more businesses adopt it, if our roading authorities adopt it, by retrofitting stormwater grates we can better protect the health of our oceans," says Sage.
The Minister says everyone still needs to do their bit with the likes of reusable bags, BYO containers, and Keep Cups - and the easiest solution is not to litter in the first place.
Newshub.
