Can 10,000 pieces of litter be collected from one New Zealand beach by one person in only 70 days? Sadly it has been depressingly easy.

This week sees the release of a collaborative video project between two Canterbury artists, Matt Akehurst and David Thorpe, which highlights the ‘disappointing success’ of Matt’s beach litter campaign.

Matt, aka the ‘Rubbish Runner’, has been running a 4km loop most days and picking up litter on the way. His aim was to pick up 7,000 pieces in 70 days. This goal was exceeded on day 47. Yikes! Matt was also collecting pictures of the litter he found and posting them on his Facebook page. That’s when he bumped into David who suggested making the images into a video. David wrote and produced a soundtrack for the video to link it all together.

“We are just two blokes with the same goal”, says Matt. “We humans make a mess, we are all responsible and need to make changes and do our bit.”

Matt and David are just a couple of average Kiwis on a similar mission – to create awareness of our litter problem and set a better example for our kids.

Check out their video here: