Money for education on litter

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34021, 10 December 1975, Page 20

Money for education on litter

Litter is offensive it is also expensive. Local bodies spend millions of dollars cleaning up after thoughtless people have discarded all manner of rubbish in all manner of public places. In recent years, efforts have been made to change the attitudes of New Zealanders, especially young New Zealanders, towards litter. Efforts have also been made to discover why New Zealanders throw rubbish away so carelessly so that more effective ways may be found of discouraging the habit.

The body behind these efforts has been the National Litter Control Council. The council has an annual budget of less than 560.000. derived from lottery funds, from the Government by way of grant and subsidy, and from private industry. The council is concerned because it has less to spend on publicity and promotion than it would like. Large sums of money should not be needed for the council’s purposes, but if the council can provide convincing proof that its efforts are less effective than they might be for want of a few thousand dollars, the Government should not hesitate to increase its support for the councils work. It would be sad if the real progress that appears to have been made in encouraging people not to throw rubbish away without any thought for where it ends up were now’ wasted.

If New Zealanders cannot be educated or persuaded not to throw litter away because it is a bad habit more litter wardens will have to be employed—and local bodies will still have to clean up the mess. This would involve a continuing drain of local body funds. Money spent on making New Zealanders aware that dropping litter is a slovenly, anti-social and expensive habit will not be wasted. Ratepayers have a right to expect that local bodies will be able to use money raised from them for more productive purposes than cleaning up the mess left by inconsiderate people.