Pupils fight pollution

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32707, 9 September 1971, Page 17

Pupils fight pollution

fFrom Out Own Reporter) TIMARU, September 8. Timaru City’s “Antipollution Week” was opened this week by the Mayor (Mr S. R. Bennett) and the Member of Parliament for Timaru (Sir Basil Arthur). They officiated at the planting of a tree at the South Canterbury Historical Museum.

The project is the brainchild of Form VI pupils from the Timaru Girls’ High School and Craighead Diocesan school. They have set up a committee to investigate problems such as sewage disposal, air pollution and litter. Sir Basil Arthur said that more public awareness of the problems of pollution was needed and more definite action. The tree-planting at the museum was symbolic, he said, of the effort being made at Lake Rotorua, where trees were being planted to act as “sponges” to soak up fertilisers and other minerals which were causing weed in the lake to grow at an alarming rate. The school-pupils interest went a step further this week, when under the supervision of a member of- the Timaru City Council’s reserves department, they spent a day collecting rubbish at Ashbury Park, a part of Waimataitai Beach, and the Ben venue Maori Park. They also plan to address pupils at primary schools in Timaru.