BROKEN BOTTLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1943, Page 4

BROKEN BOTTLES

A STREET DANGER

OFFENCE UNDER THE LAW

Numerous complaints nave been received regarding the serious menace to the public and to-tr3ffic of broken bottles in city streets, following the Petone mother's letter published in -The Post" on Tuesday. Although it has not been made public, the City Engineer's Department has been clearing up bottles and splinters periodically. The city bylaws, as well as the traffic regulations in general, provide penalties sufficient to deter the promiscuous dropping of empty bottles in the streets, but the chief trouble appears to be to catch the offenders in the act.

The city bylaws, since 1933, have made it an offence for any person to deposit glass, tin, hoop, iron, or any other matter of a similar nature in a public place. Under the bylaws-the maximum penalty for conviction of this; offence is £5. Under the Police Offences Act for an offence of the same nature there is the same penalty. If the glass comes from a motor-vehicle the onus is on the driver of the vehicle to remove it from the roadway. The placing of an unbroken bottle or glass on the surface is just as much an offence as casting a bottle so that it breaks, because subsequent traffic or some other cause may break the bottle or glass. The only case in which the driver of the motor-vehicle is not obliged to pick up and remove the glass is where he is incapacitated through an accident. CONSTABLE'S COLLECTION. Throwing or depositing bottles on the streets of the city is no new thing. Some two years ago a constable was asked, to prove a point, to collect the bottles on his beat, and in a week he collected 432. This was hardly, in the peak of war activity, and though the streets have been more crowded lately, it is not fair to blame servicemen for all the broken glass in the streets today. Though hospitality to them, and by them to their friends, may have added to the usual quantity of broken glass, especially after parties at night, it is unfortunately a case of a general-in-crease in drinking amongst the community, as shown by the excise figures, that is to blame.. . ' "The amount of broken glass in the] city and suburbs has been causing the cleaning branch of the City Engineer's Department a great deal of concern,'' said Mr. C. E. Luke today. The matter had been brought to his notice by the Automobile Association, he said, and he had taken measures to remove the glass. The Milk Department handled thousands of bottles daily and there were a certain number of breakages, but the management equipped vehicles with brooms so that roundsmen could clean up broken glass. With depleted staffs the additional work today was becoming a burden, said Mr. Luke. Therefore, he had provided every motor-vehicle operating for the department with the necessary equipment to sweep up broken glass, and this innovation it was hoped would help. The brooms issued for the work had been taken from the salvage stocks, and consisted entirely of brooms which had worn out in street sweeping.