While Alert Level 4 has given many an opportunity for baking cakes, building projects and binge-watching TV shows, collecting roadside rubbish has filled the days for Andrew Earl-Peacock, of Brighton.
With both his job at Moana Pool and his usual beach pastime of surfing off the table under current conditions, he found himself at a loose end.
However, a bicycle ride from Brighton to Taieri Mouth gave him inspiration on how to spend his lockdown.
He was horrified at the amount of litter he saw along the way and decided to do something about it.
In the first two days on the job he covered about 4km of the road and was astonished at the amount of rubbish in that stretch.
"[I picked up] an entire wool sack full of recyclable rubbish and multiple buckets and bags of landfill waste, as well as building materials and car parts."
The vast majority of the rubbish was things such as drink bottles and fast-food packaging, which made him think the rubbish might have been discarded from moving cars.
Of greater concern was an "appalling amount of illegal dumping" over the side of banks, spilling on to the beach in some cases.
So he contacted his boss.
In an email to the Dunedin City Council he implored it to promptly arrange to clean up the waste, which included corrugated iron sheeting, plastic, polystyrene and animal carcasses.
He said he was pleased with the response. The council contacted him within 24 hours with a pledge to clean the coast as soon as possible.
A council spokesman said the council was aware of illegal dumping in the area, which had been a recurring problem over many years.
A contractor would be dispatched to remove the rubbish as soon as possible, and would look for any evidence of the culprits for further follow-up.
