Tiny pieces of rubbish have washed up from Otago Harbour and lined the shore along Portsmouth Dr following the recent spate of bad weather.
Many people walk and cycle along the shore each morning, including Ben Nevell, who said he could not just cycle past and do nothing.
"It’s just disgusting.
"It makes me ashamed to be human."
This weekend he pulled up with trash bags and a trailer, put on a pair of gloves and got to work.
He whipped up a pair of signs asking people to stop and help, which had about a dozen people helping on Saturday and a couple yesterday.
The shoreline looked apocalyptic, he said.
There were countless tiny bottle caps, lollipop sticks and balls of polystyrene that took a long time to clean up.
It felt almost pointless to be cleaning it up so slowly, but doing something was better than letting it all be washed back out to sea.
The task was "boring and not very pleasant".
At first he thought the city council needed to do something, but after spending a few hours picking up tiny bits of plastic he realised it was a job far too big for the council.
It would take a serious community effort to clean the area and he hoped others would spend some time to help make an impact.
