After more than two decades on the water, Sea Cleaners remains a driving force behind one of the country’s most enduring and effective waste recovery efforts - and it’s not doing it alone.
The organisation, founded in 2002 by Hayden Smith, has built a movement powered by cross-sector partnerships, local trust, and a clear mission: to intercept litter before it reaches the ocean and find better ways to deal with it once it does.
“We’re not just cleaning up,” says Smith. “We’re creating systems that communities, councils and companies can plug into - systems that are already delivering results and are built to scale.”
With support from partners including Coca-Cola in New Zealand, Auckland Council, Northland Waste, Future Post, NILO, and hundreds of community collaborators - as well as the strong backing of Mayor Wayne Brown, who as Patron of the Trust, has consistently championed its impact - Sea Cleaners has created a system that’s as much about circular solutions as it is about ocean clean-ups.
With long-standing support from the Coca-Cola Foundation since 2019 and, more recently, Coca-Cola in New Zealand, Sea Cleaners has grown from a grassroots initiative into a nationally recognised operation.
Additional support from Auckland Council’s Waste Minimisation and Innovation Fund and the Healthy Waters team has grounded the programme locally while enabling broader operational expansion across priority waterways. Together, these contributions, alongside the support of community trusts, local businesses, and schools, have helped Sea Cleaners grow from a small-scale clean-up crew to a leading force in waste recovery, environmental education, and community engagement nationwide.
Partnerships remain a driving force for Sea Cleaners. In 2024, the organisation helped launch the Waste Stream Alliance, an ambitious collaboration built to tackle the challenge of recycling highly contaminated marine plastics. The Alliance brings together Sea Cleaners, Northland Waste, Future Post and clean-tech firm NILO, combining operational expertise with commercial innovation to turn rubbish into resources.
Each partner plays a distinct role. Sea Cleaners recovers and audits marine plastics. Northland Waste sorts and transports that material. Future Post transforms recovered plastic into 100% recycled fence posts, rails and other products for use across farming, horticulture and in the equine sector. NILO, backed by IKEA’s investment arm, upcycles low-grade plastics into a non-toxic industrial adhesive - a scalable, circular alternative to urea formaldehyde in fibreboard production.
“We’re not recyclers, we’re upcyclers,” says NILO founder Neville Jones. “We break plastics down to the molecular level and give them a new life. It’s about permanence and true circularity.”
The Alliance enables a broader spectrum of plastics to be recovered and reused, with each partner processing a different grade of material. The result is an end-to-end value chain for plastics previously destined for landfill and a proof point for what’s possible when environmental intent is paired with commercial viability.
“No one organisation can fix this,” says Dave Elder, Future Post. “The Alliance helps us stop competing for feedstock and start building a smarter system.”
To date, Sea Cleaners has removed more than 20 million litres of litter from Aotearoa’s marine and freshwater environments - an estimated 200 million individual items. In the past quarter alone, the team collected 640,000 litres across six operational regions, marking a 50 per cent increase on the previous period. Since its inception, volunteers have contributed more than 190,000 hours of clean-up activity, supported by a national fleet of vessels and full-time crew.
But while those numbers tell a story of scale, it’s the organisation’s operating model that ensures lasting impact. Sea Cleaners combines year-round consistency with detailed data reporting and on-the-ground education, building not just awareness but capacity. It works closely with schools, communities and local groups to embed a sense of ownership over local waterways and link that ownership to action.
“We don’t just turn up once,” says Smith. “We build trust, show what’s possible, and stay.”
Sea Cleaners is now focused on scaling what works. That includes expanding regional operations, increasing throughput across Alliance partners, and piloting the model in Pacific Island communities where marine plastic issues are high but recovery systems are limited.
“We’ve shown what’s possible when you roll up your sleeves and work together,” says Smith. “Now we’re inviting others to come aboard because the more of us in the waka, the further we’ll go.”
For more information on how your organisation can support Sea Cleaners or the Waste Stream Alliance, visit seacleaners.com or contact network@seacleaners.com.
