22 November 1999

South City New World are lending a helping hand to ensure a quick and effective clean up after Christchurch’s millennium celebrations in North Hagley Park.

The supermarket is donating 20,000 plastic shopping bags to the event’s organisers who be undertaking a new idea in post-show rubbish collection. The shopping bags will be handed to people as they arrive at the park for the concert. During the evening the audience will be encouraged by master of ceremonies, Mark Wright, to put their rubbish into the bags and then tie the bag’s handles into a knot and leave it on the ground where they’ve been sitting. Once the show is over, a clean up team will sweep through the audience area and collect up all the bags.

In the Park 2000’s venue manager, Andrei Martin says “Normally the cleaners are faced with a frustrating and lengthy task trying to collect the thousands of items of litter blowing about in the wind. I think we can expect to see the park returned to its natural state much faster using this method”.

For more information contact:
Michelle Beckett,
Christchurch City Council Leisure,
phone (03) 941 8842