Rubbish Free Parks
14 January 2003
From late January there will be no more rubbish bins in nine of
Christchurch’s regional parks - the Groynes, Styx Mill, Spencer
Park, Seafield Park, Bottle Lake Forest, Port Hills reserves, Travis
Wetland, Taylors Mistake, and Halswell Quarry Park.
Christchurch City Council coastal area head ranger Rodney Chambers
says the aim is to encourage visitors to these parks to recycle
their rubbish. “If people can ‘pack-it-in’, I’m
sure they can ‘pack-it-out’,” he says.
“The removal of rubbish bins from parks is not new. The Department
of Conservation, Auckland Regional Council, and Parks Victoria in
Australia having been doing this for years and it works. Visitors
understand the need to recycle and they take their rubbish home,’’
he says.
Some of the city’s regional parks including Travis, most of
Bottle Lake and the Port Hills are bin free already.
“It has been working in these places for sometime and now
we’re merely formalising the process,” says Mr Chambers.
The Christchurch City Council passed the resolution to remove bins
from the nine parks in October. In the past, a contractor has emptied
bins from Christchurch’s regional parks and taken the rubbish,
unsorted, to the refuse stations.
Under the new scheme, the Council will engage a contractor to a
lesser extent to pick up the odd bits of rubbish discarded in the
regional parks, and cleaning of the parks will be increased.
“Not everyone will embrace the idea initially. Experience
in other centres has shown that after some initial concerns the
majority of park users changed their behaviour and began to recycle,”
says Mr Chambers.
“The City Council’s environmental education programmes
have been reinforcing this message for years and the children who
visit our parks are often the best at recycling,” he says.
Mr Chambers says if park visitors take their picnic rubbish home
with them, they will be more likely to put items such as drink bottles,
newspapers, and cans into their recycling crates for kerbside collection.
“That way, there is less wastage of resources, a reduction
of waste to landfill, and our regional parks stay clean and attractive,”
he says.
Doggy-do bins will be retained at these parks and on the coastline.
See the City Council’s website for more information www.ccc.govt.nz/RubbishFreeParks/
Top of Page ~ Media Release index
|
