The National Environment Service (NES) held its Clean Up The Cooks event on Friday. Volunteers were allocated places to collect waste by NES, which also provided bags.

The clean-up event has been running for more than 20 years in the Cooks Islands.

In a statement prior to the event, NES director Halatoa Fua said in a typical year the community collects about six tonnes of waste from around Rarotonga and the Pa Enua.

“This is waste we have removed from the lagoons, beaches, streams and bush areas.”

The clean-up theme for this year was “This Is The Only Home We Have”.

Fua said the islands waste mountain in the Cook Islands is steadily growing and is now a major concern for the community.

“This is not the kind of mountain we want to have in our backyard. To help combat the growing waste problem, we can start by all following the Five Rs for waste management – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Re-purpose and Recycle. Doing this is one of the best ways to ensure our islands are a beautiful place to live, work and visit.”

The Cook Islands was part of a global World Cleanup Day comprising of 191 countries. In the past the event had 60 million volunteers and 303,000 kg of waste collected.