Unwrapping an anti-litter package

Press, 27 July 1981, Page 16

Unwrapping an anti-litter package

The Christchurch City Council this month decided to take tougher action against litter. Christchurch is not alone in its problem. In this article supplied through NZPA, Mike Royko of the Chicago “Sun-Times” gives his plan to control litter in parks.

A couple of friends who regularly bike or walk through Lincoln Park along the lakefront in Chicago were complaining to me about the mountains of litter they see in the parks. ’ “It's everywhere,” one said. “I see the same hunks of paper, stuck in bushes that have been there since spring, the same old chicken bones in the grass week aftqr week.” The other said: “Why don’t you write something getting on the park system’s back, so they’ll send in more workers to clean it up.” Absolutely not, I said. That’s the wrong approach. “It’s wrong to clean it up?”

That’s right. History shows that it is a waste of money to clean up the parks because as quickly as they are clean, people come in and dump another several tons of litter, and you have to clean the parks again. It is also unfair to spend tax money, contributed by those of us who don’t litter, to clean up after the slobs who do.

“But you can’t just let the garbage pile up,” my friends said. That is also true. So the idea is to have clean parks without paying an army of payrollers to keep them clean. This is done by teaching people not to litter, by persuading them not to drop their hot dog wrappers, beer cans, chicken bones, half-eaten sandwiches and disposable diapers in the grass or lagoons, but in a wastebasket instead.

Obviously, you do not persuade them to do this by broadcasting television public service messages or printing stern editorials.. People who toss beer cans, chicken bones and disposable diapers in the grass are too dim-witted to listen to reason.

You persuade them through the controlled application oi intimidation, fear, even terror. First, you form a special • unit of some 100 or 200 cops " who are (a) big and strong, and (b) mean and nasty-tempered, and (c) filled with little love for their fellow man, and (d) who enjoy arresting people..

They would be sent into the park in groups of five or 10, wearing street clothes, disguised as picnickers, joggers or softball players.

They would hang around, looking for someone who tosses anything — even a piece of tissue — on the ground. Then they'd pounce — arresting people by the dozens, the hundreds.

Drop a paper cup — you're under arrest. Toss a hog dog wrapper on the ground — into the paddy waggon. Leave your chicken bones behind — into the slammer with you. No mercy, no second chances, no passes.

Reporters would be invited tb witness the arrests, so that television news would show people kicking and screaming and weeping as they are dragged to paddy waggons.

The television cameras could carry interviews with ashenfaced people who would say: “Good God, all I did was throw

a beer can in the lagoon, and here I am in a jail cell, torn from the arms of my loving family. Oh, what will become of me?”

These television segments would be of great public service because they would teach a valuable lesson to any potential litterer who happened to be watching.

A special littering court would be established and the judges would be urged to hand out the maximum fine of $5OO. (And the fines would run higher for those who resisted arrest). Those who could not pay would be given a choice — serve their time in the county jail, or serve the time in the parks picking up litter. They would be required to wear jailhouse uniforms with the words "convicted litterer” on the back, and they would be supervised by mean, shotgunwielding guards, wearing .trooper hats and reflecting sunglasses.

When stories about these fines and sentences came out, litterers would be filled with even more terror.

And after one or two weekends of well-publicised mass arrests, you can be sure that the amount of litter in the parks would be greatly reduced.

When I explained my plan to my friends, one of them said: “But if they made mass arrests, that might touch off rioting.”

Fine, let them riot. Then the police could put on riot gear and bash their heads with clubs and spray mace in their faces. Anybody who would riot to defend the privilege of throwing hot dog wrappers on the park grass deserves to have his head split.

It. would produce wonderful headlines: “Litterers riot in Lincoln Park: claim right to spread garbage."

Once again, the television coverage of a riot would discourage further littering. If someone looked at his television and saw rioting litterers being wheeled into hospital emergency rooms, their heads bleeding, their limbs broken, he might say to himself: "I don't think I will leave my chicken bones on the grass next Sunday” If these measures didn't reduce littering completely, then it would be up to the Chicago City Council and the Mayor to pass even stricter laws. One possibility would be to restore the old practice of putting people in stocks. These were wooden devices with holes through which wrong doers put their heads and

hands. They were locked in and put on public display.

The stocks could be placed in the parks where strollers, joggers and cyclists could see the convicted litterers and laugh _at them, tweak their noses,' twist their ears, and throw over-ripe tomatoes at their heads. After spending a hot Sunday in the stocks, a fellow would give sober consideration to next time walking a metre to a wastebasket, with his empty potato-chip' bag.

Even' with more severe punishments, there would be a few chronic, habitual litterers. So there should be special laws for them.

If a person was arrested and convicted of littering 10 times,

let’s say. it would be obvious that there is no hope of ever reforming him. So he would be hanged. And his worthless remains would be left to dangle from a tree in the park, twisting slowly in the wind, with a sign attached to his shirt frorit that said: “This person wouldn't stop littering. Let this be a lesson to you." The sight of an unreformed litterer hanging from a tree in Lincoln Park would get the message across to others that they should not toss their disposable diapers in a lagoon. I think this programme would do away w’ith most litter in the parks. And if it didn’t, there would be only one thing we could do. We’d really have to get tough.