Sea Cleaners Making Waves in the Fight Against Marine Litter

Since 2019, with the support of The Coca‑Cola Foundation, Sea Cleaners has collected more than 376,000 kilograms of marine litter from Auckland's waterways and coordinated over 13,000 volunteer hours. 

Sea Cleaners is much more than just a cleanup initiative; they are educators and innovators in responsible waste disposal and recycling practices.  Their long-term strategy is to reduce plastic waste and educate people to dispose of their rubbish in eco-friendly ways, including recycling, and so not to harm the environment. Like us, they know there is a problem of litter and rubbish entering our waterways and ultimately contaminating our coastlines and the sea. Since it started in 2002, Sea Cleaners has collected more than 127 million pieces of rubbish from New Zealand waters.

They work with a number of local organisations, such as Northland Waste and Future Post, to ensure that collected litter is sorted properly and goes to the correct place. Plastics suitable for recycling are transformed into new products such as fence posts or garden beds. 

All our bottles and cans are recyclable. In Aotearoa, New Zealand all our plastic bottles under 1 litre and all our water bottles in all sizes are made from recycled plastic (excluding caps and labels). We can help prevent them becoming waste or ending up in our waterways by recycling them and helping them have another life. We believe collection initiatives like Container Return Schemes will help to keep more bottles and cans in the recycling loop and out of our waterways.

Originally established to reduce litter, container return schemes have far reaching environmental, financial and social benefits - from supporting local charities who raise funds via container refunds, to giving bottles the best chance of becoming another bottle.

We’re proud to have been sponsoring those efforts since 2019, when The Coca‑Cola Foundation started a partnership with Sea Cleaners to help get more vessels on the water in and around Auckland, Hauraki Gulf and Kaipara Harbour.