Crs may join sweepers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33814, 10 April 1975, Page 1

Crs may join sweepers

Some Christchurch city councillors may soon don dungarees and go out on a 3 a.m. tour of inspection with the city's street cleaners, to get a better idea of the litter problem, and of the ways it is tackled.

The suggestion was made at yesterday’s meeting of the council’s works and traffic committee by Cr B. .1. Britten. and was commended by the chairman (Cr P. I). Dunbar). The committee’s early morning tour may take place in June. Mess and litter in the city’s streets came under discussion several times at the meeting, and Cr H. L. Garrett commented at one juncture that no other city in the world would tolerate the mess in Cathedral Square and nearby Worcester Street. This problem would never be overcome while the existing food shops were still in the Square, Cr Sir Robert Macfarlane said. Drunken food-shop patrons dropped rubbish everywhere, he said. The city engineer (Mr P. G. Scoular) said there were parts of the Square that council staff refused to sweep—they had been physically assaulted when they tried to clean them up. Mr Scoular made the point that when the litter problem was considered, the actions of those who made the mess should be considered, as well as the work done by those who cleaned the mess up.

Later in the meeting, there was some discussion on the desirability of leaving waste-

J taker bins in various sub-j I urban areas at week-ends, so that residents could use themIto get rid of domestic rub-1 I bish. i If a ban on rubbish tires jwent ahead, such a move ; might be very desirable, I speakers said. Cr Dunbar said that other !cities which had tried the ; system had found that people ■kept dumping rubbish after i the bins were full, so that not I only did the council have to i take away the bin, but it also j had to clean up the surrounding area. But people could be eduicated not to do this, he ■ thought. The committee i should have another look at | the idea, although as the council did not have its own j waste bins, it would have to ■hire them. , Mr Scoular said the wastebin system had worked well jin other cities, and the over- | filling problem had been i overcome in one instance by ■having a notice on the side |of the bin asking users to telephone the bin company jwhen the container was full. The problem, he said, was: ■that the system could be ■expensive, and one council had estimated it cost about $3OOO a year for each bin. 1