Tāneatua Lions president and Keep Whakatāne Beautiful Committee plan to engage with children to be tidy Kiwis during this year’s Clean Up New Zealand Week.

Whakatāne district councillor Andrew Iles, who leads both groups, says they are running a colouring competition to highlight the significance of being “tidy and thoughtful Kiwis when disposing of rubbish”.

The competition will have prizes of books by local environmental author Nikki Slade Robinson across five age groups.

Meanwhile, the adults, and family members, are showing how it is done.

Last Sunday, nine Tāneatua Lions members spent the morning clearing rubbish from the berms of State Highway 2 between north of the Pekatahi Bridge to south of the Tāneatua Cemetery.

They also cleared roads as far as Waiotahi Quarry on Reids Road.

They collected 50 maize sacks of rubbish, resulting in 190 kilograms of kerbside rubbish ending up at the Whakatāne Transfer Station.

Iles said a lot of the rubbish was plastic bottles, aluminum cans, wet wipes and glass bottles, many of them smashed.

Several large nitrous oxide cannisters were another discovery.

Iles said most of the rubbish looked as if it was thrown from car windows. The only sign of fly-tipping was a large pile of mussel shells.

Competition forms for the colouring competition have been distributed through schools and you can look out for the competition in today's edition of the Beacon.