Some of us have been involved for some years but we have not recorded our actions on a blog before....
So, WELCOME to our blog. We will show the types of litter we pick up each week. We have lots of metal tongs to help us pick up the rubbish hygienically and we have gloves. But some people didn't use the tongs for the photos!! We will remember next Thursday lunchtime.
We will also shortly begin water quality testing again and comment on the state of our Pakuranga Stream. In the past we have recorded samples for Waicare and we found out that the quality of the water was very poor because of the lack of invertebrates in our stream.
Snails were the most abundant water creature and this showed that the water quality was not good. We wrote a letter to the editor at the Howick & Eastern Times asking for information about the stream and a local resident contacted us about its history. At one time it was possible to canoe down the stream to the Tamaki River but this can no longer be done. This is due to the silting up of the stream.
We were disappointed to see rubbish in the stream and beside the walkway - look at the photos below...
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| Rubbish dumped off the walkway on the north side of the bridge - we found the top of this monitor as well |
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| Too much litter like this - we need to protect the stream, the fish and the larger marine animals who can eat this rubbish thinking it is food! |
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| Some of this rubbish could come from EPS some students thought... |
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| These road work cones concerned us- perhaps the Council can take them out... |
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| Rubbish on the stream bank... rain would have washed it in... |
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| Yuck! |
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| Lots and lots of plastic |
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| AJ volunteered to get the plastic toy in the stream |
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| Poor, unwanted money bank |
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| The landfill rubbish is dropped in the Council rubbish bins - the paper, cardboard and glass are recycled in our school bins |
We all agreed that we have a big job to do!
Please comment on our blog if you are protecting a similar reserve like ours.
EPS Eco-Warriors
