Breamar Howells is cleaning up the beaches on Motiti Island today, removing rotting meat and spoiled milk powder bags the residents have been complaining about for weeks.

'We've had meat on the beach now for three weeks,” says resident Ali Martin.

Debris from the Rena wreck litters Motiti Island. Photo: Gillian Saunders.

'I complained about it – I think there's a long list of things that need doing and they are getting round to it.

'It's a hell of a thing because most of Motiti is rock – and the milk powder, oh dear, it's horrible.”

The debris includes everything from plastic packaging material and food containers, to timber, to upholstered furniture, supermarket baskets, polystyrene, pre-prepared rice dinners and packs of meat.

Ali says the most worrisome for sea and bird life are millions of tiny plastic beads, which look like fish roe or caviar.

She says amongst it all are big cow pats of thick black oil.

Debris along the Motiti beaches was collected and bagged on Monday, with the bags flown out to the waiting barge the Brandywine today.

Braemar's hazardous noxious specialist is dealing with the clean-up because of the meat that needs to be collected.

'Work on Motiti has been planned since before the break up of Rena, but that very event meant Braemar's focus had to be directed to different areas,” says a spokesperson today.

'Motiti has always been a priority to Braemar. Since the Rena broke up we have had vessels hovering to reduce the amount of debris reaching the island.”

Vernon Wills, who lives at Home Bay (Orongatea) on the western side of the island, says it is the local helicopter pilot who initiated the clean-up.

'John Funnell, the main helicopter guy whom we know quite well, he's been landing refuelling containers in front of our cabin,” says Vernon.

'He said ‘What's happening with that stuff on your beach?' and I said ‘Well nothing and we are sick of waiting,' and he got right on to the other guys and they are doing it today. 'He's been brilliant.

'I only hope the one with the meat parcels in the bottom doesn't drop out of the containers.”

The debris has been brought back to Motiti by the weather change that brought the debris field back from the western side of the bay.

'And we got everything, you name it,” says Vernon.

'Shopping baskets and punnets of rice – the seagulls seemed to like that. It's just rice with little bits of veges in it.

'The timber is messy, but not insurmountable at all.”

He thinks in six months there will be little sign. The debris is being cleaned up a lot quicker than the oil was, says Vernon.

'We have been lucky with the oil on Motiti, we have got globules earlier on, but you would have trouble seeing where it is now.

'I could show you spots on the rocks where it is gradually dissipating.”

The penguins are also pretty clean, says Vernon.

'I think they are getting the oil mainly when they go into their holes.

'They leave a little bit of oil in the entrances of their burrows.

'There's only a couple of wildlife people working on the island and they say it's quite good really.”

Timber is a mainstay of the debris to wash-up on Motiti Island. Photo: Gillian Saunders.

Plastic containers and other debris littered amongst the driftwood on Motiti Island. Phto: Gillian Saunders.