Students contribute to community clean-up

A team of volunteers including Victoria University of Wellington students recently collected an estimated 1.5 tonnes of rubbish during a local clean-up.

Student volunteers standing in front of the rubbish collected

In late October students teamed up with volunteers organised by Conservation Volunteers New Zealand and staff from Energy Technical Services, who had planned to pick up rubbish in the area surrounding Wellington’s Terrace Tunnel on State Highway One.

Armed with gloves and bags, the group removed 60 bags of rubbish from the area.

Items included bottles, cans, plastic wrappers, shoes, clothes, blankets, and road cones. The group also discovered bikes, a bottle of helium, and a laptop that had been discarded in the bushes.

Wellington City Council organised the collection of the recyclables and waste, and the company Interwaste organised disposal of the sharp items.

Bachelor of Arts student Nina Hogg was one of the students who volunteered. She runs an environmental group at her hall of residence Victoria House.

“I’m passionate about the environment, and I've realised this year how easy it is to give back to the community and help with these kind of projects in my spare time,” she says.

Fellow volunteer Bachelor of Tourism Management student Ruiwen Kang says: “I wanted to help out in this activity so that I could interact with people and develop my communication skills. I spent almost six hours at the clean-up. I got to do it with my friends who are also international students.”

Ruiwen is taking part in the Victoria Plus Programme—the University’s service and leadership development programme.

The Victoria Plus Programme recently won the ‘Benefitting society’ category in the prestigious Green Gown Awards, which recognise sustainability best practice across the Australasian tertiary education sector.

Charlie Devenish, the University’s civic engagement and leadership programmes manager, says it’s great to see students working alongside a business as they put corporate social responsibility into action.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to get students into the community and we’re grateful to Conservation Volunteers for the role they played in this clean-up as well as for the ongoing partnership they have with the Victoria Plus Programme.”

Conservation Volunteers of New Zealand run a variety of conservation activities such as tree planting, weed removal, predator control, and stream restoration.