We cleaned a CDS unit in East Tamaki and we were honored enough to have the Right Honorable Mayor Phil Geoff come and see what we were doing. It was also on TV1 which gave many of our crew their first TV debut.

Katie Bradford reported for TV1 News:

“The Auckland stormwater treatment system collects roughly 5000 tonnes of plastic waste each year, but plenty of other plastic makes its way straight into the coasts surrounding the city. To help combat that, the council wants to upgrade every major storm pipe in Auckland.

“It’s going to cost millions of dollars because we are going to have to retrofit the system so that every storm water pipe filters out the sort of storm water rubbish we have seen today,” Mr Goff said.”

Challenge to the city

Our challenge to you this month is to pick up a piece of rubbish every day, even if it is not yours!

Each morning when the crew stand in the shed waiting for the WIFLE to start, I drive in wondering how the mood of the crew will be? It is cold, dark and often wet and I am about to ask them to head off into the darkness to service stormwater devices all over Auckland.

I am always astounded at their positivity and enthusiasm. This is a team anyone would be proud to be a part of. I am proud to be the leader of this group and I am grateful for what they do for our business.

Changes to the Dutton Stormwater team

In June we said goodbye to Jezza – Jerry Neho. He is off to Australia to make a new start and we wish him well. This has left the Operations team a little light on manpower for servicing stormwater filters. The boys have stepped up, and for the month of June we completed 97% of our planned jobs. This is a stellar effort considering we had a major Litta-trap project for one of our largest customers – Foodstuffs – to finish before World Ocean’s Day on the 8^th of June.

We are in the process of recruiting two more staff members who will join in August as Stormwater Technicians.

Let’s not forget the trucks – our man Leon gave two of our trucks a full birthday and painted them our pristine Ice White. Small Boy and Big Boy are repainted and ready to start playing their part in cleaning up Auckland’s oceans.

LittaTrap™ Foodstuffs project major focus in June

Our major focus for June was to complete the roll-out of the installation of LittaTrap™ stormwater filters into 11 designated Foodstuffs sites around the north island. We geared ourselves up, got ourselves trained by Stormwater 360 and hit the road. This was a major team effort.

• Our sales team had to plot and measure the dimensions of each cess pit we were installing a litter trap into.
• Our logistics team had to order the correct number of Litta-traps for each crew.
• The Logistics Crew then arranged the journeys in the most efficient manner possible and booked all the accommodation.
• The operations team got themselves geared up with cordless dynadrills, hammer drills and Stanley knives and hit the road going north, south and east.

We finished the project well before the deadline and on the 8^th of June one of the LittaTrap™ we installed in Wellington New World was on TV with the environment minister and other Foodstuffs representatives. It was a most enjoyable project and we look forward to rolling it out to the rest of the stores in the north island.