HAD RIGHT IDEA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 195, 19 August 1942, Page 6

HAD RIGHT IDEA

VAN OWNER AS COLLECTOR

RI'HUKIt Will, WIN THE WAR

George S. Smith, of Point Chevalier, has got the right idea about this rubber collection stunt.

lie did not wait for the council truck the day after to-morrow and put out the little worn bit of rubber at the end of the kid's pencil. He didn't sit down and wonder why there wasn't a better response from John Citizen. He did something about it.

Mr. Smith took three hours off from his business and decorated his motor van with bunting and notices about rubber winning the war and all that. Then with the assistance of two lads who work for him he toured the streets of his home suburb, and in three hours collected three-quarters of a truckful of waste rubber. Twelve cwt, three quarters and 211b to be exact. Not a bad effort for a man, two boys and a megaphone in 180 minutes.

The megaphone, by the way, was most important. On reaching a new street Mr. Smith bellowed into the horn, and naturally attracted a good deal of attention. It was most effective. Housewives "caught on" immediately and by the time the collectors were at the gate the women had garnered tidy heaps of old rubber. Mr. Smith used his own time, his own van and his own benzine, but he thinks the expenditure was well worth while.

Needless to say the waste reclamation people were delighted when they beheld the contents of the van. It set them thinking about what could be done all over Auckland it there were more vans, more helpers making a house-to-house canvass. Those best qualified to judge estimate that not 10 per cent of the scrap rubber in city and suburbs has so far been surrendered.

What is needed are a few more George S. Smiths.