When complaints rolled in about shopping trolleys being dumped in a local waterway, the Whakatāne supermarket owner waded in to help.

Bruce Jenkins, a former police officer, hauled trolleys dumped around the Whakatāne Skate Park – despite only one belonging to his store.

Mr Jenkins pulled two trolleys from the stream between his store and the skatepark, one from the outlet to the Whakatāne River and retrieved one from a lawn area on the reserve on Wednesday.

Only one of the trolleys turned out to belong to New World. The remaining three were from Kmart, 3 kilometres away at The Hub.

Mr Jenkins, a former Whakatāne senior sergeant who recently purchased the supermarket, said it was important to deal with the issue of stolen and abandoned trolleys promptly to prevent the behaviour from becoming normalised.

He likened it to the “broken window theory” used in policing in which dealing with minor crime was thought to prevent it escalating into more serious crime.

New World owner Bruce Jenkins retrieves a Kmart trolley from a stream near the skatepark. Photo Diane McCarthy.

Mr Jenkins said removing trolleys from supermarket carparks was stealing in the eyes of the law, and the cost of replacing them was $200 to $300, depending on the size.

The number of trolleys abandoned in the reserve area around the skatepark was brought to his attention by concerned Whakatāne resident Graham Chambers, 84.

Mr Chambers said he walked his dog, Jojo, past the skatepark along Warren Cole Walkway every morning.

While trolleys winding up in the river and salt marsh area around the skatepark, between McGarvey Road and the Whakatāne Yacht Club, had been a problem for the past 10 years, Mr Chambers said he felt it had become worse recently.

He was concerned that not enough was being done by the shop owners to retrieve them.

“The Whakatāne District Council staff do a wonderful job of keeping the parks looking good. Their workers are out there rain or shine,” he said. “Then the tide goes out and all you can see is these trolleys covered in weed.

“We’re supposed to be promoting ourselves as a tourist destination. How does it look for tourists when they come to our town and see this?”

Volunteer group, Apanui Salt Marsh Care Group, which is supported by Bay of Plenty Regional Council, has monthly clean-ups and also regularly hauls shopping trolleys out of the waterways and returns them to stores.

“It shouldn’t be up to them to do it,” Mr Chambers said.

He said there was a system in the United Kingdom that required a coin to release the trolleys, which was refunded on its return. It could offer a solution here, he said.

Graham Chambers with one of the submerged trolleys he spotted while walking his dog Jojo this week. Photo: Troy Baker.

Noticing that the majority of the trolleys had red handles, Mr Chambers thought they must belong to the nearby New World Supermarket and reported the problem there.

When Mr Jenkins was told about it on Wednesday, he immediately went home to change out of his uniform in case he ended up having to enter the water.

With a rope and hook, he retrieved four trolleys, one belonging to New World and three from Kmart. Mr Jenkins said he returned the trolleys to Kmart on Wednesday afternoon.

A spokesperson from Kmart said trolley theft was common problem for the store. The company was looking at putting a solution in place but nothing had yet been confirmed.

In the meantime, their trolley’s did have a phone number on the handle that could be called if someone found one that was lost, or it could be reported to the store.

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.