About 300kg of rubbish has been collected daily from freedom camping sites around Lake Dunstan at times this year, the agency in charge of managing the areas says.
The Central Otago District Council's community services committee yesterday received a report from Colliers International, the organisation contracted by Land and Information New Zealand (Linz) to manage freedom camping areas in Central Otago.
The report said freedom camping areas had been in high demand during summer, and Colliers had contracted Fulton Hogan to check sites twice daily during December and January.
Extra cleaning and rubbish removal had been done in March, when about 300kg of rubbish collectively was being collected from the three lakeside campsites - Bendigo, Lowburn and Champagne Gully - daily.
The Colliers report said most complaints about freedom camping had been from other campers, as opposed to members of the public. The complaints were about campers washing in the lake, blocking boat ramps at Bendigo and Dairy Creek, and the high numbers of campers at the sites.
At the Bendigo site, the septic tank had overflowed and the toilets closed to allow the ground to de-saturate.
Five Portaloos had instead been installed.
Fulton Hogan would design and build a new septic tank at the site, but wanted to gauge camper numbers first. A counter might be installed to find out how many visitors were there a day.
