St Leonards resident Antonia Wood is a regular plogger — a Swedish word that combines picking up rubbish and jogging — along Otago Harbour, and attends and runs cleanup projects.
The Tidy Kiwi Award recognises people who show exceptional leadership in litter prevention, waste reduction, recycling and beautification activities.
"I would love to know who nominated me for the award. I was a little surprised," Ms Wood said.
Her passion for keeping the environment clean started years ago after a campaign against dog poo around the harbour, when she organised a cleanup of the original 5km of the Te Ara Moana.
"I made my own little rubbish bins out of buckets and put them along the path for 2km or 3km and I would empty them every week.
"People started putting their dog poo bags in there, so we made our own little community rubbish system."
However, she was sad to see all the rubbish around the harbour when she went for runs.
"It got to the point where I didn’t want to keep running past it and feeling terrible — so I thought I better do something about it.
"So I started picking up rubbish on my runs."
She hoped other people would see what she was doing and start to follow suit.
"There’s probably a lot of people out there ... that you just don’t hear about or you don’t see. I hope that it just keeps growing."
Cleanup week begins on Saturday.
Ms Wood will be cleaning up Logan Park with the help of Keep Dunedin Beautiful and the University of Otago group Lets Get Trashed.
"When I was plogging this morning, I was thinking what if everybody once a week picked up a handful of rubbish?
"Imagine how many people would be out in the community keeping Dunedin clean."
Keep New Zealand Beautiful will hold the Beautiful Awards at Parliament House in Wellington on November 9, which Ms Wood is invited to attend.
