* Tonight ` a Fair Go special. Welcome to our shores of shame. We've collected over four million litres of rubbish. Behind the thin green veil of mangroves lurks a plastic wasteland. I've gone from curious to a little bit furious. If we keep buying, wrapping and dumping, it's just a matter of time before the consumer is consumed. How much of it do you think is recyclable? Three quarters. I'm thinking way less than that. The problem is complex and shocking. Oh, I didn't get the undies! LAUGHTER Which is why we've mobilised Kiwi kids to come up with a creative solution and reinvent rubbish. At first, we didn't think we would be able to finish it. But in the end, it came out perfect. Welcome to the show ` a show we've dubbed the Rubbish Revolution. And this is pretty much its reason for being. It's the bottom of an old soft drink bottle we found in Auckland Harbour. 'So what,' you say? Well, those black bases have been out of production for more than 25 years. Which means that has been floating in our harbour for a quarter of a century. Plastic waste is a major problem, which has transformed our world in a very short time. RELAXED MUSIC This is a story about plastic and why we've got to stop chucking it away... Like this. ...and stop using some of it in the first place. These are year nine students from Whangarei Boys High School. Found half a car. They found half a car down here? They aren't wagging down the riverbank ` far from it. Got a mailbox. These young men are on the frontline of the rubbish revolution ` a battle for a better tomorrow that is being fought one sack of trash at a time by far too few of us. All of this in, like, half an hour, in maybe 150m of coastline. I've joined them for the day to meet this guy. Straighten it up. Watch where we're goin'. Hayden Smith is one of the leaders of the revolution. 14 years ago, when some of these kids were just in nappies, Hayden launched a war on plastic. DRAMATIC MUSIC He's built up Sea Cleaners from nothing to deal with a vast problem ` too much plastic in our seas. Basically from the Bombays to Cape Reinga is where we're looking after at the moment. He's like the pool guy with the biggest pool in the world to clean. That's a huge amount of coastline. Yeah, it is. What are we going to see here, then? The effects of consumerism on the environment. Down in the mangroves, you can see why the clean-up is a life's work for him and Amy. We know that we've collected over 4 million litres of rubbish. Sounds like a lot, but the world makes much more plastic ` about a quarter of a billion tons every year. This piece here is about 30 years old. How can you tell? The black base that's on the bottom. We found two more like it right here. Plastic is forever. It never goes away, does it? Doesn't seem to. Which seems crazy when you know it's mostly made to be used only once and then thrown away. I think we're at the point now where a lot of the plastics we're making are having an unacceptable impact on us and on the environment. Therefore we need to review the plastics we're making. Ian Shaw is professor of Toxicology here at Canterbury Uni. He knows a lot about plastics ` helpful and harmful. Have you ever seen one of these rubber ducks that you float around in the bath? It's a really bendy plastic, and it's so bendy because it's got these in called plasticisers in. And these molecules can leach out of plastics. They can leach out into the environment, or they can leach out, for example, if you cook your food in a microwave in a plastic container; they can leach out of that plastic container, into your food, so then we could get doses of those plasticisers. And you're sitting there thinking, 'Oh, it won't affect me.' Well, it is. And if we look at the sperm count, the human sperm count is declining. Girls going into puberty earlier because they're being exposed to chemicals that look like oestrogen, and that makes their body think, 'Oh, oestrogen. Oh boy, better go into puberty.' Clearly the concentrations are high enough; the doses are high enough. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing those effects. Plastic is affecting the breeding chances of these guys too, in a far more brutal way. Yep, that's a sea turtle, and, no, it's not asleep. This is only a young guy. He's probably maybe 5 years old, 6 years old, and for some reason, it's died. And this naturally would have lived for well over 50, 60, 70 years old. He was found on a Northland beach, not so far from where the boys were gathering plastic earlier. Dan is a marine biologist. He's about to do a gross necropsy. That's pretty good condition. Gross because it's what you can see with the naked eye. But it's pretty gross for other reasons. No fractures. These guys just inadvertently go through munching whatever they can get their little mitts on. And, um, unfortunately they eat quite a bit of plastic. Some of the worst is maybe one turtle that ate almost 500 pieces of plastic, and that had all compacted inside its body and caused it a really slow and pretty horrific death. Chances are none of us will actually eat so much plastic that it fills our stomachs and kills us. But as I've been learning, it isn't just the turtles drowning in a sea of plastic waste; it's all of us. You know the till receipts you get when you're going to the supermarket? They're actually coated with bisphenol A. Just by handling the till receipt, you're absorbing some of that compound. So when the person in the checkout in the supermarket says, 'Would you like the receipt, sir?' 'Oh, no, thank you very much indeed!' He's watched that compound ` commonly called BPA ` making breast cancer cells divide and grow in the lab. Yet you've got it in your pantry. It lines most cans of food. Our Food Standards people say... But Canada has banned it in baby bottles. France banned it in any food container. So is a rubber duck going to turn me into a girl? No, your rubber duck isn't going to turn you into a girl, you, personally. But what it will do ` manufacturing that rubber duck ` is when you finish with it, it'll get thrown away then go into a landfill site or something. Then those chemicals will leach out and get into the environment, and lots of people's rubber ducks and plastics are going exactly the same way. So these chemicals are leaching out into the environment and increasing the levels in the environment. We gotta be honest, though. Some of them don't hang around for a long time. So they're slowly degrading as well. But as we're constantly putting more in, more and more is getting into the environment, even though some of it's disappearing. The rubbish revolution suddenly seems vital to me ` a problem so big, we have to tackle it. But how? It's like this around every bend up there. You grab a bagful, and there's another bagful waiting for you, and another, and another, and another, and I've gone from curious to a little bit furious. This is a huge, huge problem. Something that took a second to drop takes minutes of backbreaking work to recover and may be doing untold damage to us all. Yet Hayden seems serene. You get angry about this? Not really. There's no point being angry about it. We've gotta be positive about it. What we've seen today with the kids from Whangarei Boys High School out helping, that is inspirational. No point wasting your energy when there is so much to do. We need Mother Nature to sustain us, and I believe if we hurt her, she's gonna hurt us. So, we're not really doing a good job with that, are we? All of that rubbish makes me really angry. Can I just add to your anger with a frightening thought? Did you know that every piece of plastic ever produced ` if it hasn't been recycled, then it still exists. So how do you fight against the rising tide of plastic waste? We asked Kiwi kids to put their thinking caps on and come up with creative solutions. REGGAE MUSIC It's an open-air classroom for these guys today as they put their creations to the test. Right from the start, I just couldn't believe the questions. They were all firing questions on the first day as to what they could do and how they could do it, and it was just a case of leaving them to come up with ideas. Let's go inside to find out to find out how this enthusiastic bunch set about brainstorming ideas and even printing 3D models to get the engineering just right before they took on the task of building something pretty cute. They were so enthusiastic. It was originally supposed to be a smaller project with a group to extend, but we decided to go through the design process as a class, and they got into it so much that I had no choice but to say, 'Hey, let's everybody do it. 'We'll find a way to get you all there to test with the horses.' Yup, we said horses. Here they are ` small but perfectly formed. Usually keen on jumping, although right now, a little hesitant. I thought, 'Oh man, I hope it doesn't break.' Oh, he's not the only one thinking that. I'm a pretty good builder too, cos Dad is. So I learn a bit from him. It took a bit of warming up, but then they were off. The ponies nailed it. Yes! Their horse jumps made out of plastic bottles survived even the toughest test. We made a slideshow that said they're indestructible. So now I believe that's true. Good on Patumahoe for giving it a go and for making it into our Primary Finalist category. We'll find out later if they made the top three. Well done, Patumahoe School. Cool group of kids, and those ponies ` so awesome. They're one of 10 finalists in the Primary School Section. Competition's tough. We received more than 200 entries from schools all throughout NZ. The winners will be announced later in the show. And if you are into recycling, you are in for a shock. Recycling makes us feel good. But it's time to wake up and smell the waste. How much of it do you think is recyclable? Uh, three quarters. I'm thinking way less than that. Plus... living a life without plastic. I want you to get ready for work, but you're not allowed to touch any plastic. It's a lot harder than you think. Oh, I didn't get any undies! * Welcome back. Here's a fact that might surprise you. This bit of plastic, which we found in Auckland Harbour, it's 25 years old, yet it has only just begun its life cycle. Buried plastic materials can last for hundreds and hundreds of years, which means this is a problem that isn't going away in a hurry. If we keep buying and dumping, we will ultimately be consumed by plastic waste. (GIGGLES) 3-year-old Perry Jones is the family's recycling officer. That, that. And like any good manager, she's not afraid to delegate. You take the newspaper, Dad. I'll do the rubbish. You see, lately the recycling has been piling up. But it hasn't been getting her down. Apple. Apple! Remember that apple container ` it will return to haunt me. All the kids have helped because we've been keeping our plastics. It's all part of a Fair Go experiment. So, the producers of Fair Go are really smart people, and they said, 'Hadyn, collect all your plastic for a month.' Only problem with that was all I heard was, 'Hadyn, collect all your recycling for a month.' So I've got a month's worth of recycling and about two weeks' worth of rubbish, which has all my plastic in it. So, well, giddy up, NZ, cos we're about to go through my rubbish. I'm about to find out just how much plastic we throw in the rubbish. Bread. That plastic. This plastic. This is disgusting I hate it, especially when you go to the supermarket and you want to buy some meat or chicken, and it's one piece of meat and one piece of plastic. That's my neighbour, Marta. She was just walking past. In the end, we filled up two bags of plastic from two weeks of rubbish and four weeks of recycling. The only good news from this rather unscientific experiment was after you remove the plastic, Oh. Here we go. That's better. ...two weeks of rubbish fitted in one bag. So time for me and my plastic to take it on a trip. I brought my rubbish down. Yeah, this is your rubbish, right? I brought my rubbish. Yeah, you drink a lot of wine, probably. (LAUGHS) It was quite a journey. Lovely ducks! And I'm here. Oh, no, this way. Read the sign. This is Wanaka Wastebusters ` recyclers extraordinaire. The boss is Gina Dempster. Her bike's electric, of course. She's trying to save the Earth from plastic. Gina's agreed to go through my recycling. Sushi. The wife is very keen on sushi. Uh, salad. And how much of it do you think is recyclable? Uh, three-quarters? I assumed most of my plastic could be recycled. Potato chips ` bit of a guilty pleasure at night when the kids are in bed. That's a foil bag. Not really a plastic one. No recycling? All goes in the rubbish, unfortunately. All in the landfill. Yep. Does that break down? No, no. Landfills aren't designed for things to break down in them; they are basically designed for things to sit in them. So the world's going to be awash with salt and vinegar potato chips? Mm. This wasn't a great start. Coffee cups. It's a recyclable coffee cup. Eco cup. Do you think you should put that in recycling? I'm feeling good. I'm feeling like by drinking that coffee, I've helped the world. Gina says they're compostable but definitely not recyclable. Unfortunately that's going to end up in the landfill. It doesn't matter if it's a compostable cup or a normal cup. It's going to have a liner of plastic in there, and so it's not gonna be recycled. People think it's just paper, but if you think about it, if that was paper and you put hot coffee in it, what's gonna happen? Coffee cups, I've just learnt, are an environmental disaster. 180 million every year that we send to landfill in NZ. Gina says the solution is simple. Maybe just sit down and have your coffee. Do you get frustrated? I do. I do, because there's not a lot of planning that goes into packaging. Quite often we put so much thought into marketing and into creating the product, but we want to see the people that are making the money from the product and selling the product take more responsibility for the kind of packaging that it's in. So while Gina sorts, I thought I'd slip out front. So far we have showed you the backside, the kind of smelly side of Wastebusters, where they recycle, well, everything, really, but out front, I've been dying to show you this. This is where they've got everything want ` you just didn't know you wanted ` like... mops and other stuff. Come with me. This floaty, kayak-y thing. (IMITATES CHOPPER) Or this one. It's good. Oh, hey. 'Scuse me. How much for the helicopter? Oh <BLEEP>! The most popular recycling here is rehoming. People get sick of something they bring it here, somebody else loves it. And I love that instead of going out, it goes off to a new home and to someone that loves it. Ooh! Maybe the solution is in Europe, where you get money for taking your plastic back. This is better than Las Vegas. You always win! It solves the problem of littering, and it really boosts recycling rates, cos people have real incentive to get recycling to the right place. NZ's recycle rate is between 25% and 40%. Germany's is over 80%. They've gone from having 50,000 landfills to less than 300. Or maybe we could all do what Anna van Reil did. Had a moment of clarity. (LAUGHS) Anna's pet hate is plastic bags. Apparently we're each responsible for 350 plastic bags, which we use for about 12 minutes before they make their way to landfill. So I guess... I put a post on Facebook, and it went a bit viral. It involved her sewing machine and lots of her friends. We had lots of people who took home sewing kits. They took the clothes no one wanted and turned them into shopping bags. They became a must-have item in Wanaka. Our goal is that by 2019, we will be plastic-bag-free in Wanaka. FUNKY MUSIC Meanwhile,... Wow. I've heard about those. I've never seen one. ...back at Wastebusters, I've been busted. To me this is a perfect example of ridiculous packaging. It's a cartridge of apples. How many can you get in there? Maybe about... four? Four or five. It's recyclable, but Gina wonders if we really need it. We don't need to package apples. Apples come pre-packaged naturally. When I arrived, I thought three-quarters of my plastics could be recycled. Yeah, I'm looking at that and I'm thinking way less than that. I'm thinking... maybe a quarter to a third. A third! I'm a rubbish-making machine. We are the only animal that creates waste. So this animal is off home to rethink how I consume. After all, we don't want to become the Land of the Long White Landfill, do we? That was bit of a journey for me going through my rubbish. I took the whole country with me. Thoughts? I know you're ashamed, and I am as well, because I am also guilty of so many of those things. Goodbye to the Apple cartridge in the Jones household. Now, provided some entertainment for you here on the beach and for you at home ` pop quiz time. I know you're excited. Question one of one ` how many plastic bags do you think that Kiwis dump every day? Every day? I'm going to say 100,000. Oh, it's not even close. We dump every day close to 1 million bags. It's like 40,000 bags every hour. Every hour! It's atrocious, isn't it? So can we find a creative solution through the eyes of children? FUNKY MUSIC In this quiet little corner of rural NZ is one small class of kids with one big idea for helping the planet. Mauriceville School has just 14 students, one teacher, a dog and these two ` LAUGHTER the Run-a-Mucks. They're the school helpers, stand-in grandmas. These kids are really really special to us, and we know that we are really special to them. And they've taught these kids about recycling plastic, reusing it to make a hothouse for growing food. We built the greenhouse to trap the heat in to warm up the plants on a cold day. And rain goes through for it. For teacher Rebecca Stevens, the project offered the chance to teach the kids some valuable life skills. They use measuring skills; they use leadership skills, social skills, turn-taking. You name it, they used it. All the bottles were donated from the local recycling plant, but the kids led this project from start to finish. I want to plant strawberries in there! They're very proud of it, and they were horrified that we were doing an ad, cos they thought that we were going to sell the bottle house as soon as they'd made it! No chance. This hothouse is here to stay. Good luck, Mauriceville School! Hey, Mauriceville School! High five to you guys at home. Well done. Such a great way to use those old plastic bottles. Recycling and reduction are they key to solving this problem. But that really is easier said than done. After the break, you will be amazed how hard it is to get through a day without touching plastic. I want you to get ready for work, but you're not allowed to touch any plastic. Welcome to our plastic world. No, you can't touch that. Getting out of the house is hard enough. Oh, I didn't get any undies! Getting to work is a whole other challenge. Zovirax fights cold sores and cuts healing time by half compared with no treatment. So you can too. * Welcome back. We live in a world of plastic. No matter where you are ` shopping, working, at home, in the car, on a bus ` it is ridiculously hard not to touch it. Exactly. Removing plastic from your life is near-on impossible. Here's Anna and her human guinea pig, Matt. This is what happens when you're sent to ruin your colleague's day. Matt! Morning, sunshine. Time to wake up! Bet you wouldn't normally see me in your bedroom at this hour. Well, (CHUCKLES) no. Have I got a challenge for you today. I want you to get ready for work. But you're not allowed to touch any plastic. No plastic? At all. Not a problem. Now, you might be thinking it can't be that hard. Well, Matt's first challenge is to get out of bed. I wouldn't stand on the carpet. No? Oh, because it's synthetic. That's right. Smart cookie. But this is just the beginning. Oh, I'm gonna have to wear a Swannie. A Swannie, eh? There's my shirt for the day. Nah, they're plastic buttons. I don't do them up. (LAUGHS) I'm really cool like that. I don't mind going nude, if I have to. BOTH LAUGH At this point he might have to. But this is just the start of Matt's plastic-free problem. (GROANS) I didn't get any undies! LAUGHTER Now, at this point, Matt needs to get into his bathroom cabinet, which is made from... thermoplastic. That's definitely not plastic. I would never have bought a vanity made from plastic. OK. In fact, I'm offended. Well, it doesn't really matter, because Matt can't use anything in this drawer anyway. No, that's` No, you can't touch that. That's definitely plastic. No hair product, no deodorant, no moisturiser. In fact, Matt can't even brush his teeth this morning. But there's one man who lives largely plastic-free every single day. There's heaps of people that you could be interviewing, and I feel a bit guilty about all this. Robin List uses a bamboo toothbrush, mows the lawn by hand, and produces less than one bag of plastic rubbish every year. The aim of it was not specifically to cut down on plastic; particularly, it's a much more whole way of life that we live. Robin and his wife, Heather, live in Masterton. They shop local and reuse plastic containers when they buy groceries. Robin's decided there is a place for plastic, but we're just too dependent on it. And yet there's good plastic and there's bad plastic is a conclusion I've come to. I think there's just crazy, silly use of rubbishy plastic. Some people might argue carpet's good plastic, but Matt still can't touch it. Maybe this is a good time to give you some relief. I've got some cotton shoes. Oh, they look a million bucks, don't they? There you go. So it's a little bit of a... It's your first cheat. So you could have given me these shoes back there. Could have. Those shoes got Matt downstairs, to the next problem ` breakfast. There's no toast. You can't touch any of those. That's the end of that option. OK. Cereal. Yes. Yes, we're looking good. No, we're not. Plastic bag. Pushed to his limits, this plastics survivor comes up with a Paleo-friendly breakfast option. Not quite the same without pepper and salt, is it? Oh. I know you guys would be really envious, but there's only enough for one! At least there's an upside ` he can't touch the dishwasher. So there are some advantages! LAUGHTER Short-lived, of course, because Matt's gotta walk to work today. Right. You ready to go to work? Absolutely. How do you normally get to work? I normally take the bus. There'll be no travelling in that plastic projectile . Of course if Matt had prepared a little more, he'd find going plastic-free isn't really that hard. The Lists in Masterton, well, they actually have heaps of plastic in their lives. They just reuse it. There were just a few things that if you start getting them out of your shopping cycle, you could go a long way. And most of those things were plastic ` the dreaded meat tray, for example. And they encourage others to join them in going plastic-free. The local butcher's the latest convert, wrapping his meat the old-fashioned way. Speaking of old-fashioned, Matt's gone back to the ancient art of walking, but progress is slow. We're about to hit the bridge, so we've got a solution for you. Swim? Sort of. Now, finding a plastic-free way to cross a body of water ain't easy, but i did have something planned. Is this ocean-going vessel safe, do you think? Look, I don't know if I would classify it as an ocean-going vessel. I think it's only been lake tested. But there's one way to find out. And luckily, Matt was keen as... even after his first attempt failed. And his second attempt too. Oh no! (GUFFAWS) So, I volunteered to save Matt from this misery. After all, there are some useful plastics, and a ride to work saw him arrive just three hours late. But he still had to sneak past security,... Run! Run! Hey! Come back! ...only to find he couldn't actually do any work. Can't touch that, can't touch the keyboard. So he decided to call it quits. Although he still needed a plastic swipe card to leave the building. Shucks. I'm stuck. You've gotta love Matt Chisolm. Sure, he is clumsy, but he is committed to what's an impossible task. I know. Just goes to show the plastic has infiltrated every part of our daily life. The problem was created by us, our parents and our grandparents. Ultimately, it will be up to our kids to find a solution. And, thankfully, innovation is alive and well. ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC It's pretty fresh and pretty choppy, but there's no deterring the kids from Churchill Park School with their milk bottle paddleboards. Some of these guys are even missing cricket practice to be here, and one has already put his body on the line. One of the highlights was a trip to A & E for one boy who learnt a valuable lesson about the extreme temperatures associated with hot glue guns. That was an interesting morning. Mr Watt had his hands full with this creative bunch ` 14 different entries. They all wanted to look at plastic in a whole new light. They had to go through researching the environmental issues surrounding bottles. MUSIC PLAYS FROM BOTTLES Then there was the technology aspect of designing a project. And then you don't even get into making the ad itself, which took hours and hours scriptwriting, editing, all that kind of thing. So it was really good. Yep, Churchill Park School seems to be fertile ground for young minds. And you know what? They actually struggled a bit with materials ` which is good news for the planet. We didn't actually have enough bottles, like, halfway through. Where did you get the rest? Me and my mum like raided the cafes in St Heliers. Sometimes they weren't always clean, so there were some quite interesting smells coming out of the back room once the bottles were opened. OK, let's get some fresh air. It's the moment of truth. And just look how it handles. At first we didn't think we might be able to finish it, but in the end it came out perfectly. Team NZ, hope you're watching. Think we just found the future. Kudos to Churchill Park. I know! So many brilliant ideas! Smart kids out there. Indeed. After the break, creativity turns rubbish into a thing of beauty. Take a beach,... A lot of people don't pick the rubbish up because they think, 'Ooh, it's grubby.' I just think, 'Just pick it up.' ...add some creative thinking,... Milla, don't look at the camera. and a whole lot of ugly can become a thing of beauty. There's an art to it. I quite often walk along, kicking seaweed, looking like a complete nutter! * Welcome back. Our beaches are fast becoming coated in plastic sand. According to Sustainable Coastline studies, single-use, disposable plastic items accounts for 72% of all rubbish picked up on NZ beaches. Plastic rubbish ain't pretty, but a whole lot of ugly can be transformed into a thing of beauty. FUNKY GUITAR MUSIC The artist's studio ` slightly shambolic, a riot of colour. Nothing all that surprising, except perhaps the materials. The things that have surprised me is the stationery. There's a lot of ballpoint pens. The Pump Bottles, the tops of the lids, like, they're just massive. KFC spoons surprise me, cos I thought there's not a KFC by here, so for that amount of spoons, it seemed insane. Cotton buds actually outweigh the lollipops. A lot of car bits, a lot of car lights. Mouth guards, I'm not sure where they come from, but mouth guards are there. A lot of dental hygiene. You know, they're a bit icky. URBAN MUSIC Artist Kirsten Newton has become the rubbish lady ` a familiar figure on Devonport's beaches. Collecting material for he latest piece, and sadly there's no shortage of it. I'm worried in the sense that people still tell me there's no rubbish on the beach. I think that lightbulb hasn't gone off yet. People still... The beaches here are beautiful, and we do look out at the vista, so when you're looking out at the vista, you don't see the dirt at the feet. Today we're looking down. We've got a bunch of local kids volunteering to help clean up the beach. Milla, don't look at the camera, OK? It's fiddly work. On top of the usual plastic debris, we find hundreds of nurdles, or mermaids tears, on the beach. What are these? What they are is the plastic ` the raw plastic before it's turned into something useful. It comes in huge container ships of massive pellets full of this stuff. They're tough to see in the sand, but Kirsten's developed an eye for spotting the trash and turning it to treasure. There is an art to it. I quite often walk along, kicking seaweed, looking like a complete nutter. (LAUGHS) It's also turned her into a bit of a storm chaser. You might arrive one day and it's all polystyrene, because that's the kind of waves that have come in, and the right wind to push polystyrene towards the shore. One day I collected eight lighters in one go, and then you won't collect a lighter for six months. Likewise with the pegs. The source of this artistic gold? Kirsten's convinced it's the storm water system. The other day I thought, 'Yes, it is definitely coming from the storm water.' As the storm was happening, and I drove into my road, and there was this beautiful green peg just moving across the road and down to the beach, and I was like, 'Yes, I've been validated ` 'how that is getting from A to B.' And what becomes of all this debris? It's given a new life. Her latest piece ` an interactive display at the Sculpture on Shore exhibition. The weirdest thing I found was a car light. It's glittering, and it's not good for animals in case they eat it and then they might die. Kirsten's hoping it'll get us thinking and that the council might pop up these pieces up around the city to encourage people to open their eyes, pick up the rubbish. A lot of people don't pick the rubbish cos they think, 'Ooh, it's grubby, it's yucky,' but really, it's already been washed in the storm water getting down. It's been at the beach, and I just think, 'Just pick it up, put it in the bin, send it to me. I'll make a chair out of it.' Those mermaid tears, or nurdles, I've never seen them before. There's hundreds of them actually on this beach here. Really amazing how she turns them into something beautiful. And far be it for me to speak on your behalf, but I will. We were amazed how many children answered the call to find a creative solution to our waste problem. All up, we received more than 200 creative and practical upcycling ideas. You are about to experience a musical mess like never before. They're smart, aren't they? With their fresh faces and delightful wee voices,.. Don't waste that bottle. That can be used in the bottle-flip challenge. ...the young 'uns pulled out all the stops. Don't keep your emotions bottled in. Tell Bottle Boy today. (PLAYS NOTES) ALL: Sick Beats, the music of the future. They called us out,... Hey, you. Yeah, you. ...roped in stars. Shucks, they even used invisible jetpacks to grab our attention. Their ideas ` imaginative, innovative... When you're ready to use the compost, just open the door. ...and darn right creative. FUNKY MUSIC Splash out on an Aqua Rider and chill this summer. Some pushed the giggle button. Strap on a fashionable vest, clip on the bottles relative to your weight, and you're golden. Others hit the heartstrings. CHOIR SINGS: # Hareruia! # Looking at recycling and I'm thinking, opportunity, paddle boards ` the world's my oyster. You do! Now, our challenge to Kiwi kids was to create something practical out of plastic bottles and make an ad promoting that product to the world. The task of picking the best from the rest was put in the hands of two very capable judges. Meet our judges ` Michelle Dickinson, aka Nanogirl. She makes science fun on telly and radio and social media and in schools. BOOM! SCREAMING And Michelle Walshe. She runs a production agency, Augusto. This is some of her work. I'm a UFO-logist. And she directed the Richie McCaw doco Chasing Great. I'll be looking for execution, creativity in execution. Your product is never gonna succeed unless you can communicate and convince others that it's a great product. The judges start with secondary school entries. Nice, happy ending. I think he's a really funny presenter. He was really good. How much is it? It's free! It's fun and cheesy. It was cheesy. RAPS: # Turn off the light and I'll glow. # Unexpected. BOTH LAUGH MAN SPEAKS Different to anything that we've seen so far. They just come out with things that are completely left-field, which I love. I'm just so proud of how much effort and work and time has gone into these amazing projects. 100% recycled boat. Highest score, so far. Splash out on an Aqua Rider and chill this summer. Branding was fab at the end, wasn't it? Really is. Certainly better engineered than, say, some of the other ones we've seen. And now they have to find the top three. So much pressure! The stakes are high. It's a massive prize pool. The hardest thing about being a judge is to be impartial and to be fair. I love the execution of this. It's creative. And then... Is that number one? Agreed. Done. BOTH LAUGH And it was on to primary schools. Now you can with the bottle garden! I love that. Was executed well. It was funny. Yeah. Song made entirely from plastic bottles. BOTH: I love it. I love the teamwork. Are you tired of being sad and lonely at lunchtime? I like that they've tried to think of something outside the box. Buy our plastic tree for all your gardening needs. There's some real thought behind that. The execution of that was exceptional. Yeah. Come on, you deserve it. Treat yourself. I'd wear those. I'd wear those too. Can we have some? BOTH LAUGH # Oh babe, I hate to go. # Good storytelling. And so we built the bottle house. And it worked. It was humorous. Absolutely adored it. And the chickens. Chickens everywhere. I know. # Hareruia... # That gave me goosebumps! I know! I'm like... Taranaki ` where the mountains are beautiful. The detail was beautiful. The quality was so high in the primary schools. I wish we could've given out some more prizes. 13 entries then became... These are tough to let go of. ...just three. One, two, three. BOTH: Done. (LAUGH) Very exciting! Coming up ` we announce the winners of our challenge. Yes, and we take a look some of the world's amazing plastic creations. There's the practical, the inspirational and the inspiring. I wish we were standing here today saying we've solved the problem. From ocean-going boats, to plastic-bottle houses, we tip our hats to those thinking outside the box. The idea is to change the world without changing the Earth. Plus,... CHEERING ... we meet the winners. * Welcome back. In a moment we announce the winners of the rubbish revolution challenge. But first, we tip our hats to those who've sugarcoated plastic waste in an effort to raise awareness about this global problem. FUNKY MUSIC There are all sorts. So many things creative folk have fashioned. From plastic bottles, the best we've found, coming in at number four ` furniture. Three ` boats. MAN: ...natural and wildlife... From dinghies in India to this 60-foot cat,... The more than 12,000 plastic bottles stuck together with organic glue. ...which sailed from San Fran to Sydney to raise awareness about plastic in the ocean. I wish we were standing here today saying we've solved the problem, but obviously we've a long, long, long way to go. The second-best use for old plastic bottles ` knick-knacks and art. These giant fish on display at Rio in 2012. But our number one ` this plastic-bottle village in Panama. We put plastic bottles inside cages, and then we could just attach them one to the other. One house gets rid of 20,000 bottles. The idea is to change the world without changing the Earth. We can do that. All we have to do is get together and go in the same direction. Gotta say, there's your solution to Auckland's housing problem right there. Solved! Exactly! Right, in no particular order, here are the three finalist in the Secondary School section. First up, Carlson School. Nice job, Carlson. 'MISSION IMPOSSIBLE' THEME You may ask yourself, 'Who would want a wheelchair like this?' Other chairs are faster, more manoeuvrable and more powerful! TYRES SCREECH So why would anyone want a chair like this? To go off-road, of course! Go ahead, give it a try. Splash out on an Aqua Rider and chill this summer. Have you got the bottle for Aqua Rider? BEEP! BEEP! Terms and conditions apply. TYRES SCREECH Next up, Christ's College. Congratulations. GULLS SQUAWK PAUL MCCARTNEY'S 'UNCLE ALBERT' PLAYS # Hand across the water. # Heads across the sky. # And finally, Long Bay College. Well done. Nuh-uh! Uh-uh! Uh-uh! DING! DING! DING! Hey, what's this? It's a compost bin. How much is it? It's free! CROWD: Yeah! When you're ready to use your compost, just open the door. Easy. The clear plastic lets you see the worms inside. Wow! So what are you waiting for? Let's solve this environmental problem by getting creative today. This is exciting, and I can see kids waiting on me. So I'm gonna get straight to it. Third prize and recipient of a Canon video camera goes to... Long Bay College. Congratulations. Second prize and recipient of a Canon video camera plus $500 cash goes to... Christ's College in Christchurch. Golf clap. Well done. Well done. Which means first prize goes to the kids at Carlson School. ALL: One, two... It's work as usual this morning at Carlson School. Little does Room 5 know that there's some excitement brewing outside. All right, here goes. Hi. I'm Pippa from Fair Go. You guys are the winner of this year's Secondary School Ad Awards. CHEERING, CLAPPING The five masterminds behind this year's winning ad, and one rather delighted teacher. It's a huge, huge achievement. I'm very proud of them, and they're incredibly proud as well. They had no idea, so this is fantastic. The class brainstormed and came up with the idea of creating a floating wheelchair. Of course that meant someone had to trial it. Nobody put their hand up cos they` we're looking at the chair thinking, 'Will this work? What are we going to do? Then Vince ` Vince was brave enough to put up his hand. In hindsight, some of his classmates might have wished it was them. I like going to the pool. Pool looked like it was good fun. (LAUGHS) Technology plays a big part in the lives of these teenagers, and now they've won an impressive array of it ` a Canon SMART Board, two CANON 100D EOS cameras, an accessory pack, a Pixma printer and $2000 cash ` more than $14,000 all up ` to share with a incredibly supportive school community. They even found some hidden expertise in caretaker Andrew Sadlier, who was previously an ad man. There was a lot of good ideas on the table, and I suppose I helped them sift out the better ones from` the wheat from the chaff, as they say. This lot have much to be proud of. There'll be no holding them back next year. One, two, three. Cheers! Such a lovely day! One of the best parts of the job, that. Well done, Carlson. Moving along, in no particular order, here are the top three finalists in the Primary School section. First up, Patumahoe Primary School. Great work! # ...ki te ihi karangaranga, # kei toku Atua e hareruia. # Hareruia, # hareruia. # Hareruia, # hareruia. # Next up, Toko School. Good on you! At our school, we love the environment. We have chickens, a worm farm, an orchard and a veggie garden. We had a problem. Mrs Stark wanted a glass house to plant seedlings, but it cost too much money. So Mrs Waite looked on the Internet for glass houses, and she found the bottle house. We said, 'Let's do this everyone.' So we built the bottle house. And it worked. Now we have a bottle house with seedlings for dancing and for hiding chickens. We think you should do something with plastic bottles too. We have way too many. And finally, Bell Block School. Nicely done. Taranaki ` where the mountains are beautiful; UPBEAT, PLAYFUL MUSIC where the walkways have a view; UPBEAT DANCE MUSIC where the bridges have style; where Pukekura Park lights up at night. There's lots to do here. Third prize and recipient of a Canon video camera goes to... Patumahoe School. Congratulations. Second prize and recipient of a Canon video camera plus $500 cash goes to... Toko School, near Stratford. Yes, which means first prize goes to the kids at... Bell Block Primary, just outside of New Plymouth. Just before lunchtime... I think this one. Let's get this one. ...just outside of New Plymouth,... Where's the Lumix? Who's got the Lumix? ...the school photographer is late and a bit unorganized. Fair Go winners, here we come. The rough plan is I'm gonna attempt them I'm here for school photos. (WHISTLES) I am, of course, not here for school photos. Wow. Amazing. I'm here to give them nearly $15,000 in prizes. Nice socks. Good socks. They're going to pop. But first let's make them work a little. OK, you ready? Oh! Nice! Hungry underground worm. That's quite good. Good work. LIVELY CHATTER UPBEAT DANCE MUSIC Time to tell the truth. I'm from the Fair Go programme, and you guys are the 2016 Ad Award winners. Look at this stuff you've won! SCREAMING, CHEERING They've won all sorts of Canon goodies and cash. $2000. (GASPS) ALL EXCLAIM All because they made an awesome tourism ad from surplus plastic bottles. We went from wanting to make a little mountain to making a huge mountain. Wow. Dream big. Yeah. It was messy work. The milk bottles stunk. Well, we had to clean them. Peel the stickers off it. When you'd walk past it would be really, um,... stinky. (GIGGLES) Bell Block School has won $10,000 worth of SMART Board cleverness. Two ` yes, two ` Canon EOS 100D cameras, an accessory pack and a Canon Pixma printer. On top of all that, there's $2000 in cash, making the first prize worth more than $14,000. We don't have the camera equipment in our school. We had to borrow that. Yet to know that we've won some equipment to help our school too, that's awesome. So the ad makers know, the teachers know. Now it's time to tell the school. You guys made a plastic bottle mountain, and you guys are the 2016 Fair Go Ad Awards champions! CHEERING, SCREAMING Oh! CHILDREN CALL OUT Can you stand up? Stand up! ALL CHEER, CLAP We're thrilled. Thank you so much for coming and also for giving these children such an amazing day today. No problem. It's our pleasure. It's our pleasure. Thank you very much. Bell Block Primary, the little Taranaki school that borrowed equipment to make an ad now have enough cameras for selfies galore. Winner! Whoo-hoo-hoo! GIRLS SCREAM Hey, Bell Block School. Another win for Taranaki. Brilliant. Congrats to all of our winners. Great job across the board. And a very well done to all those who took part in the Rubbish Revolution Challenge. This was our last show for the year, but we will be back next year. Our first show is on February the 16th. The show is called Fair Go as you know. If you feel like you're not getting a fair go, then please get in touch. We're on Facebook. Email us at fairgo@tvnz.co.nz. Or write to us ` Private Bag 92038, Auckland 1142. And if you're fed up with over-the-top packaging, get in touch with us, take a photo or video and post it on our Facebook page. We'll be taking a look at that issue in the new year. When you're out and about this summer, be really mindful of what plastic you're using, and how you're disposing of it. We're off down the beach. Pippa's going to buy me an ice cream. She promised. Have a great year, everyone. Stay safe. Look after yourselves, and we'll see you soon. Goodnight. Copyright Able 2016