Mother of All Clean Ups

8/5/2021

Laura Taylor

Every year on the eve of Mother's Day, a massive effort involving hundreds of people from schools and community groups across the city, mobilises to clean up our rivers and estuary edges. Different groups coordinate different sections, and everyone meets up at The Tannery for a BBQ afterwards. Its a perfect gift to mother nature!

This year, our friends at Keep Christchurch Beautiful are coordinating a clean up of the section of the Avon Ōtākaro river between Barbadoes Street bridge, downstream through the Avon Loop, past Pomeroys and along to where Linwood Ave begins.

We are stoked to be putting together a SALT District team to help out.

Our 'camp mum' for this mahi is Linda Keall, meeting us just before 10:00 am by the Barbadoes Street bridge. She will organise and equip us. Linda is part of the organising force supporting many a clean up in the city. There is, however, only one Mother of All Clean Ups!

We will be picking up litter from both sides of river from this point to the Fitzgerald Ave bridge (by Pomeroys) and on to where Linwood Ave begins.

Linda says this should take us from one-two hours depending on the number of helpers on the day.

At about 12pm, we all reconvene at The Tannery for a BBQ. This is where the gear gets returned to the Cassells Brewery, sponsors of the cleanup.

SALT Collective are hoping for lots of sign-ups so we can do an awesome job for mother nature and round it off with some shared kai.

The deets?

  • Date - Saturday 8th May
  • Time - 10am - 12 noon
  • Meet - at Barbadoes Street bridge to gear-up. We head downriver from there.
  • RSVP or questions - tidykiwi@kcb.org.nz or 021 714 9343.

The Mother of All Clean Ups is a joint initiative of the Avon-Heathcote Estuary Ihutai Trust, Ōpāwaho Heathcote River Network, Conservation Volunteers NZ, and the Avon-Ōtākaro Network. It is supported and sponsored by Christchurch City Council, City Care Limited, and Cassells Brewery.