KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1927, Page 10

KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN

AN EFFICIENT DEPARTMENT. EDUCATIVE . WORK. OPEN FOOD SHOPS GONE. A really dean house should never need spring-cleaning. And it is the same with a city. At one time it was the custom to have a "clean-up week" now,, and again, and especially at this time of the year. People made a great fuss, cartloads of rubbish were taken to the destructor—and then people began accumulating again. There was only one good point. about "clean-up week"—it brought home to citizens that it was a good thing to have a tidy back yard. Experts are agreed that the best way of keeping, a city clean is to keep at it all the time—and that is what is done in Auckland. Some years ago, when the removal of refuse was done by contract, the dustman used to look askance when the tins were rather fuller than usual. Some folks used to resort to the practice in vogue before dust carts, and bury the stuff in the back yard, but that is' against all modern sanitary practice. To-day householders can put out as much as they like. And on special occasions extra carts go round and collect rubbish that can hardly, be classed~as household refuse, such things as old . tins, old iron, in fact anything that litters up a place.

Householders even yet fail to realise the wonderfully generous service they get from the city Authorities in this matter of rubbish removal. In some streets there are two or three collections a week, and there is no excuse for a dirty back-yard. As a matter of fact Auckland -is a singularly clean town at the present time, and one must have travelled to realise it. There has also been a remarkable improvement in recent years in the condition of Auckland's fbod shops and eating houses. It seems but the other day that we used to buy meat that was hung'outside the shop on hooks, exposed to wind that carried dust and filth from the roadway; and then those swarms of flies 1 Then think of the open fish shops, with the damp fish catching every particle of dust and dirt that was wafted their way! And the open-windowed fruit shop was quite a matter of coursed The open food shop has gone for ever, and anyone who would attempt to sell meat, fish or fruit under the conditions that were common a decade ago, would be hounded out of business by the force of public opinion. At one time these shops and. eating houses used to come under several different authorities—the Health Department, the police, the Agricultural Department and the Labour Department. To-day the City Council's Sanitary Department supervises the lot—and it must be admitted does the job well. \ Possibly the most lasting feature of the Department's work is the educative effect. Gradually the old slip-shod methods of selling foodstuffs, and of removing house-rubbish have been eliminated, and the present generation has been educated to a higher standard.