Editorial: Thumbs up to council workers who clean up our parks of rubbish

Linda Hall, Assistant Editor, Hawke's Bay Today.

A text to the paper a few weeks ago lashed the Hastings District Council over the rubbish lying around at Cornwall Park in Hastings.

I actually think the council does a fantastic job of keeping our parks and reserves clean and tidy, as does Napier City Council.

The issue here is that while it is the job of the council to keep our green spaces looking nice it's up to the public to have some responsibility and put their rubbish in the bins provided or take it home with them.

As the population grows and our section sizes shrink, more and more people are using these parks and reserves as a place for family gatherings, for children to play, to play sport or to simply enjoy the gardens and spectacular trees.

It is the entire community's responsibility to keep our public areas free from litter and 90 per cent of people who use them on a regular basis do so.

Most of us would never dream of just dropping our rubbish on the ground. But of course there are people who do it.

I'm sure we have all seen discarded rubbish lying just a few steps from a rubbish bin and wondered how people could be so lazy and disrespectful to our environment.

It must be so frustrating for council workers throughout our region to pick up after people day after day.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at a litterbug's home. Do they fire rubbish all around the place?

Probably.

So today let's focus on the workers who have to do the dirty work — thank you to all the council workers in our region — keep up the good work.