Rubbish free streets

In a time of crisis and isolation, good neighbours are what we need most. Jane Matthews brings you their stories.

At the start of lockdown Linda Graham decided she wanted every street in her South Taranaki town to be free of rubbish.

So, during level 4 she mapped out the streets in Eltham with footpaths, grabbed a rubbish bag and her daughter’s dog Toby, then hit the streets.

Graham picked up rubbish every day the weather let her, and thought she would have collected around 10, 120-litre wheelie bins-worth in total.

‘‘A couple of days into lockdown I thought I want to do something positive,’’ Graham said. ‘‘It was a real eye opener.’’

Each day she’d get out for an hour or two and put the rubbish she picked up in a bag, then into public bins around town.

‘‘I’d never, ever get around with one bag. I’d empty it two or three times.’’

Graham has had nothing but positive feedback from the community, with toots and waves from cars as they drove by and offers from people to put the rubbish in their own bins as she walks by.

Fast-food rubbish was what Graham came across most.

‘‘People are just lazy.’’

One day she walked less than one kilometre from her home and found two takeaway coffee cups on the ground, and other days she’d find deteriorating rubbish that had been sitting for a long time.

She was also shocked to find so much glass on the streets and around footpaths where children play.

Graham even started picking up items like road cones that had been sitting in streams for months on end.

‘‘I thought, I’m just going to, so I don’t have to see it.’’

Graham will continue to pick up rubbish if she sees it, but hopes others will do the same, so she doesn’t have to repeat lockdown.