T&D's Inaugural Beach Clean-Up 2022
Wednesday was meant to see the arrival of tropical cyclone ‘’Fili’ to the sunny shores of Auckland’s Herne Bay, even so, having already been forced to postpone our inaugural ‘beach Clean-up’ once, we made the somewhat controversial decision to push on. Perhaps the cyclone would blow in some interesting flotsam and jetsam, perhaps the storm would muster even more rubbish for us to collect, at the very least we would get some good shots of the team bonding in the wet and wind. As it was, the day turned out pretty calm and dry allowing us to kick off our first ever Beach Clean-up event for T&D in relative tranquility.
The reason behind starting this event was simple enough, let’s give back a little to our community and play a small part in adding value to our local customers whilst at the same time doing something good for the environment.
What we found was that the benefits outweighed what we were giving. That is, it took no time for us to realise that we need to do more in this realm. That we/us/humans are still in 2022, littering with what would appear to be careless abandon and that our cities infrastructure needs serious work.
We saw first-hand the importance of good packaging design, of environmentally sound design. Of choosing materials that breakdown or are simple over those that don’t or are complex.
We also felt good as a team. Fresh air and some fun as we roamed the beach with the metal detectorists and the stray dogs turns out is a pretty good team building exercise.
And yes, we collected some trash, lots in fact 10 rubbish sacks full, mainly of bottles, bottle tops, plastic lids, sanitary pads, broken glass and beer cans.
Next year we hope to make this event bigger, include more businesses and be a little more organized with tools and recycling bins. But it was a great start and has consolidated our belief in doing the right thing, of good design and the importance of leadership when it comes to looking after our local environment. So we boldly declare the T&D Ponsonby beach clean-up of 2022 a success and we say watch this space for 2023’s version.
