When rubbish sinks beneath the water, most would consider it a lost cause — but not Stu Scaife.
The owner of the Waikawa Dive Centre in Picton takes divers out to clean out the bits nobody wants to see in the Marlborough Sounds.
Once rubbish gets left out on the water or even by the coast, Scaife said it's "out of sight, out of mind" for litterbugs.
"It just gets taken across by the currents and the wind from a populated area to an unpopulated area," he said.
Among the many sunken so-called treasures he's found, Scaife once fished out several golf balls after someone used the Sounds as a driving range.
"It's a known fact," he said, "that a standard golf ball eventually breaks down — they're plastic — and releases toxins into the environment."
When he's not collecting rubbish, Scaife takes others out to learn about the ocean.
Once, he even got the community together to rehome undersea creatures affected by a building development.
"We went around — it sort of took a whole day — and collected up heaps of creatures off the bottom of the sea and we relocated them," one of the divers, Debbie, said.
Another diver taking part is 15-year-old Freya, who has been diving for five years.
"I thought it looked like fun so I decided to join in," she explained.
"[Scaife] was the one that actually started me off diving."
Scaife said he hopes showing people what's happening below the surface will encourage others to pitch in up above.
"I've seen changes in the environment in the Sounds in my short little window of diving here.
"That's, to me, a little bit concerning and I'd like to sort of show people that."
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