There was no local branch of Keep New Zealand Beautiful in his area. Collins contacted the national organisation and, with its support and help from the Kapiti Coast District Council, started the coast's first group. It is now called Keep Kapiti Beautiful.
He runs public cleanup events. He gives local students grabbers, vests, gloves and sacks so they can run cleanups of their own. Through him, college students, schoolchildren and neighbours have become part of the work of keeping the coastline clear.
Every week he goes out with residents of Hōhepa Wellington to pick up litter in Kapiti's parks. Hōhepa opened at Otaihanga in 2015 as a home for adults with intellectual disabilities. Sixteen people live there in eight houses. They grow vegetables using biodynamic methods and run a native plant nursery. Each week, they also help clear the parks.
The largest single piece of rubbish he has found came from Kapiti Island, the protected reserve about 5.6 kilometres offshore. Visitors need a permit to land there. The island has been free of mammalian predators since 1999, and takahē, kōkako and around 1,200 little spotted kiwi live there. Even so, rubbish still reaches it.
When he drives around the region, his vehicle carries the Keep New Zealand Beautiful signage, so the group's work travels with him.
The award recognises what he has built: a network of people who now do what he and Gillian once did alone, bending down to pick up what someone else dropped.