How to collect Litter by Little
If everyone picked up litter, it could be millions of pieces of rubbish gone each day. Beach cleanup volunteers, school groups and individuals are already part of the litterati – but rubbish is still building up.
Rubbish gets into drains and waterways, causing a litter hydroslide from city pipes to beaches, eventually landing in the sea, and it’s up to everyone to look out for it.
So what if everyone continued to pick up at least one piece of litter a day, while out walking, running, or going to work?
Christchurch resident Gordon McCrone said if everyone picked up one piece of litter a day, that would be 4 million pieces of rubbish gone each day.
McCrone once picked up litter for 10 hours a day, seven days a week for three months to remedy his spine injury.
Sustainable Coastlines co-founder Camden Howitt said New Zealanders could do better, and they should aim to use one less piece of plastic every day.
‘‘You’ve got to look at both sides of the equation, and that’s to reduce our use of plastic . . . not everything goes away and it has an infinite life.’’
A push to seek alternatives to plastic was the resounding message.
Straws and plastic bags are already a victim of the desire to reduce plastic use but people will be cleaning them up from beaches for years to come.
Ways to measure our litter are being developed, and in February 2019, Keep New Zealand Beautiful will start a national litter survey.
Keep New Zealand Beautiful chief executive Heather Saunderson said it was important to enforce civic pride.
New Zealand was one of the most beautiful places she had ever been to, she said.
‘‘In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be the need for us [Keep New Zealand Beautiful] and everyone would just do the right thing.’’