Workers clearing rubbish littering the Fox River and coastline are finding medical waste, needles and asbestos among the debris.
An old landfill spewed out 75 kilometers of rubbish along the pristine coastline and riverbed after a severe storm three months ago.
Today, a record 90 volunteers boosted the cleanup efforts, with the army transporting them.
Department of Conservation Incident Controller Owen Kilgour told 1 NEWS potentially hazardous items are being removed by specialist crews.
"There have been small amounts of medical waste identified, the occasional needle, also asbestos has been found, a number of plastic containers with unknown contents," he said.
Medical waste, needles and asbestos have been found among the rubbish which poured out of an old landfill three months ago.
"When volunteers are finding these potentially hazardous items they're flagging it with the team leader, it's being marked and specialist crews are coming in and removing that."
DOC took control of the cleanup operation from the Westland District Council and the Government has injected $600,000 into the operation.
Mr Kilgour said when they started three weeks ago they had around 10 volunteers a day, and today they've got 90.
Flooding in March this year ripped apart the landfill beside the Fox River.
"So the numbers are certainly growing but we need to sustain that number in order to get the job done."
Mr Kilgour said the trail of waste and rubbish is "equivalent to around 500 rugby fields".
"Currently we've cleared around 64 rugby fields," he said.
The debris needs to be cleared by the end of August, before spring rains threaten to expose even more rubbish.
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