Disgusted and ashamed by rubbish
The following letters are in response to an editorial by Julie Eley about environmental vandalism. After a random draw, Liz Johnson has won a six-month subscription to TV Guide.
On a trip back from Taupo, we pulled into a car park to view the Tarawera waterfall. Rubbish bins were overflowing and there was rubbish all around. We were talking to a lady visiting from Western Samoa and I glanced over the bank. At least a trailer load of lambs tails had been dumped and at the top of bank a decomposed dog was wrapped in plastic. I was so disgusted and ashamed. Having travelled all around New Zealand, this was the worst of the worst.
Liz Johnson (Hastings)
I do a 2km loop walk, almost every morning, on the Opanuku Stream walkway (in Henderson, Auckland). Over the past three months, I would have picked up more than a cubic metre of rubbish, which I leave at the end of the walkway for the council to pick up, which they do every three to four days. Over that same time I would have picked up at least 20-30 bags of dog excrement. At least 80 per cent of that rubbish and dog excrement will end up in the harbour or on the beaches in the next big flood. The rubbish I pick up between the track and where I live I put in my bins. That would have been at least one cubic metre of rubbish over that same three-month period. Being a ratepayer in Auckland for the past 48 years I’ve seen some changes. The council has a lot of staff now but seems incapable of supplying regular, important clean-up services.
Wayne C. (Auckland)
As a regular walker and cyclist in rural areas I’ve seen everything from the usual cigarette butts (fire risk also), broken glass and discarded takeaway wrappers. But one of the worst was a couple of plastic rubbish bags worth of used, disposable nappies dumped at the side of the road and strewn for about 10 metres. Whenever I think I can’t be shocked by people’s actions any more something happens to show me otherwise. It disturbs me to share a world with people who care so little.
Kirsty McKenzie (Masterton)