Mount Maunganui Main Beach looks set to close as clean-up teams are mobilised to deal with the washed up oil from the stricken container ship Rena.

Clumps of oil have washed up along the beach stretching from Leisure Island down to Tay Street.

Oil washed up on Mount Maunganui Main Beach.

The oil is concentrated in patches along the shoreline with some clumps as big as a rugby ball.

Tauranga City Council communications manager Elizabeth Hughes says closing the beach is necessary.

'The next step will be close the beach, there are council staff down at the beach to guide people away from the area.”

Speaking to SunLive at 2.30pm today, Elizabeth says she was still waiting to hear from Maritime NZ as to when the response teams will arrive at the beach.

She says the council has staff on Mount Maunganui Beach warning people against touching or interfering with the oil.

'The most important thing to remember is not to touch the oil and we have staff down helping to guide people.”

Tauranga resident David Lynn, 40, arrived on Mount Maunganui Main Beach at 8.30am today to find oil splattered across it.

'I am not happy, but all we can do now is clean up the beach.

'At first I didn't know what it was, but then I realised it is very sticky stuff.”

David is concerned about both the economic and environmental affects the oil on the beach will have on the Bay of Plenty.

'The Bay of Plenty coastline has a reputation for being clean and this is going to damage it.”

David came across three dead birds, one shag and two smaller seabirds, which he took to the Wildlife Rescue Centre at Te Maunga.

He is also concerned after spotting seagulls and oyster catchers eating dead shellfish that could potentially be toxic.

Mount Maunganui surfer Guy Shuttleworth is horrified at what he sees at Mount Maunganui.

Speaking from Commons Avenue in Mount Maunganui, Guy says there are white bubbles of dispersant across the sand and over the rock pools along with a 'whole mass of oil”.

'There is dispersant, the milky bubbly stuff in the water and it is more toxic than the oil, with a three metre swell forecast and northeast winds all week this is going to be extremely bad.”

Guy runs a surf school at Mount Maunganui and says he has been taking calls all day from people wanting to know if they can still go out in the surf.

'We have lessons booked up and we are having to cancel them.”

Guy says him and other surfers just want to get this 'mess cleaned up.”