KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 85, 7 October 1940, Page 6

KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN

' (To the Editor.)

Sir,—Some months ago a visitor to this city made the comment in the columns of the "Evening Post" that Wellington was the most "littery" city he had come across. At the time I felt like backing up that statement, but le J; the opportunity go by. However, I do think the time has arrived when some definite move should be taken to try, at least, to clean up this city and also attend to the manner in which the cleaning is done.

The City Engineer should be asked why it is that the men collecting the rubbish take off the lids of the containers and walk from the place where they were kept, across the footpath, with nothing on the tins to keep the rubbish and paper in. The result is that the wind blows the contents all over one, if they cannot be dodged, and then all along the street, until they pile up against some dead end. This is not fiction, but fact, and I see it every day the rubbish is collected in the district in which I live. Take Mee's Steps from Lambton Quay to The Terrace. They are a positive disgrace. Rubbish, filth; and water from leaking taps make it a place to avoid.

On turning from The Terrace up Bolton Street last week I was met with a shower of broken glass and scraping from windows up above which were being cleaned and repainted. Not a thing was under the men on the scaffold and passers-by, of whom I was one, had to put up with this sort of thing. I even noticed a local resident sweeping the broken glass and paint peelings from off the path so that the public using the said path would not have to scroonch through broken glass. How- people can get away with such breaches of the law, and where all our inspectors are, is one of the mysteries that remain unsolved.. If the City Engineer wants proof of my contention that this is the most untidy city. in this country, let him take a walk any morning and see shopkeepers sweeping rubbish, etc., from their shops and the footpath into the gutter and over anybody who happens to be in the vicinity. Let him have a look at the rubbish tins all along Lambton Quay; some with lids and most without. Then watch thpse same, tins being emptied into the rubbish trucks. If he is still not satisfied then I'll give him some further exercises. But I think I've written enough to show that I am thoroughly

DISGUSTED,