A committee was established with representatives from the industry, of which Kono is represented. This committee was established to come up with ideas to help solve the problem of historical rubbish on beaches and the elimination of any rubbish coming off the vessels.  

Every company within the Environmental Programme has beaches that they need to clean on an annual or for some of the worst affected beaches, monthly. When the beaches are cleaned, all aquaculture and domestic rubbish is picked up. This rubbish is then sorted into different categories and collated so that it can be reported on.

Over the last few years, the amount of aquaculture rubbish has plateaued at 40% of the total rubbish collected and we want this to carry on falling. So, in 2021 the environmental programme has been given a revamp where there will be a tiered process to the certification, depending on certain criteria. One of the criteria is the number of beach cleans that the company carries out annually. To get full marks towards the certification, Kono must carry out over 103 beach cleans annually, this is governed on the number of metres of backbone we farm.

Each year the industry gets together and carries out a ‘Big Day Out’, beach cleaning beaches that have large amounts of known historical rubbish on them. This years effort was carried out in Clova and Crail Bays in the Pelorus Sounds, which Kono had 12 people attend.