The Coca-Cola Foundation has committed to a fifth year of funding to support local community partner, Sea Cleaners. Since its inception, the Sea Cleaners team have collected over 13 million litres of rubbish from New Zealand waterways. The new grant worth over $400,000 NZD brings the total support donated by The Coca-Cola Foundation to over $1.5million NZD.
Hayden Smith, Founder and Captain of Sea Cleaners, welcome the ongoing support of The Coca-Cola Foundation for Sea Cleaners’ work in the waterways. “As we mark 20 years of Sea Cleaners, the support of The Coca-Cola Foundation has allowed us to scale up our activity, and this new commitment will help us to staff an additional boat full time for 12 months.”
Over its 20-year history, Sea Cleaners has removed over 13 million litres of rubbish from the ocean, which is enough to fill over 447 shipping containers.
“We’ve seen a huge difference in the health of our oceans over the years, but we know there is still work to be done. That’s why we continue to ramp up our activity, and we still measure every day by the bag of rubbish removed,” Hayden added.
The Coca-Cola Foundation grant was given to Sea Cleaners in 2018 to enable the team to add an additional boat to the Sea Cleaners fleet, operating five days a week and one Sunday a month. In the years since, the grant has allowed Sea Cleaners to remove over 1.56 million litres of marine litter and waste from Auckland’s harbours, bays and creeks.
Coca-Cola Oceania Director Julie O’Toole says the continuing partnership with Sea Cleaners is important for the organisation. “We’re proud to renew our partnership with Sea Cleaners, an organisation which has been responsible for so much positive change over the past two decades. Hayden and his crew are an inspiration to all of us at Coca-Cola, so we’re glad to support them in any way we can.”
“At Coca-Cola, we’re committed to reducing plastic waste, and on a global level we’re committed to our World Without Waste programme to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030, a goal we’re ahead of schedule to achieve in New Zealand. We have also now transitioned all our single-serve plastic bottles to 100% recycled plastic. We know we have more work to do, and we’ll continue to work to reduce plastic waste in our business.”
To learn more about The Coca-Cola Foundation please visit: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/the-coca-cola-foundation
