archived.ccc.govt.nz

This page is not a current Christchurch City Council document. Please read our disclaimer.
Media Releases
  Media Releases
  

 

Litter being left overnight to show extent of problem -- CCC

12 December 2003

To illustrate the extent of littering in Christchurch the City Council will delay its early morning central city clean-up tomorrow Saturday morning (13 December).
Mayor Garry Moore believes the answer to the problem of litter is not the Council spending more money to clean it up.

“ Councillors and I are getting increasing numbers of complaints about litter, asking what we’re going to do about it. We’re going to leave the usual clean-up for a couple of hours on Saturday to show two things: how much is already done to keep the city clean and just how much stuff is being dropped."

Council contractors normally work around midnight until about 7.30am during the week, and from midnight to 9.30am over the weekends. On Friday night, no more cleaning will be done after 4pm and the contractors will not return until around 9.30am on Saturday morning.

“ The point is simple: if it wasn’t dropped in the first place, we wouldn’t need to be cleaning it up,” the Mayor says. “For something that’s easily preventable, it’s very expensive. Just to sweep up we’re already paying about $280,000 a year. For that amount of money, we could build something like a new skate park every year.

“ We don’t want to be preaching about this, but I think we all need to start taking responsibility for what is a community problem. A lot of this stuff can be recycled and there are recycling bins in the central city.”

City Council staff report that the problem is not confined to the central city. In recent years there has been growing demand for regular cleaning up of litter along suburban streets. This service is in addition to the regular gutter sweeping.

Yani Johanson, chairperson of Keep Christchurch Beautiful, supports the idea of encouraging people to be responsible. "The best way of keeping our city beautiful is to not make it messy,” he says. “As residents, we all have a duty to help make our city clean by disposing of our litter properly and encouraging others to do the same. This campaign gets people to think about the impact of their behaviour on our environment, and, hopefully, make positive decisions as a result."

  • Tonight’s initiative is supported by the Central City Mayoral Forum and the Central City Revitalisation Project – at www.ccc.govt.nz/centralcity/ on the web
  • To encourage personal responsibility, the City Council is resurrecting the “Would you still do it if it had your name on it” campaign and thanks Colenso BBDO for allowing it to use images from Auckland Regional Council’s Big Clean Up
  • Groups which volunteer to clean up public spaces can get free rubbish bags or coupons for dumping from the City Council. Ph 941 8830
  • Some people tell the Council that the charges at Transfer Stations is a problem. In fact, it is free for up to three of the Council’s black bags a week

Top of Page ~ Media Release index

This page is not a current Christchurch City Council document. Please read our disclaimer.
© Christchurch City Council, Christchurch, New Zealand | Contact the Council