An incoming tide of bottle caps, clothes pegs, shower-curtain rings and all manner of plastic debris coated about 600m of the rockwall and grass along the shoreline of Otago Harbour beside Portsmouth Dr yesterday.
The plastic, which washed ashore during Dunedin’s recent wild weather, was the worst single accumulation of rubbish in Dunedin that Our Seas Our Future founder Noel Jhinku said he had seen.
The New Zealand-wide charity had conducted beach clean-ups in the city since it started in 2011.
"This is the first time since 2011 I’ve ever seen something like this," Mr Jhinku said yesterday afternoon.
The plastic debris that was swept up on to the footpath and cycleway included everyday products such as contact lens solution bottles, a rubber sole from a jandal, a football, golf tees, pens, straws, cigarette lighters and bubble wrap.
The debris was concentrated in a band that stretched from Orari St to Portobello Rd.
If the plastic had remained in the harbour it could have either directly interfered with wildlife or slowly degraded into harmful microplastics, Mr Jhinku said.
Dunedin City Council transport delivery manager Ben Hogan said because the council maintained the transport corridor, its contractors would be responsible for the clean-up.
