Middle NZ: Rubbish on Karamu Stream bank gets girls riled

The pile of rubbish one of the school girls picked up from "a mere 10 square metres on Karamu Stream bank". Photo / Supplied

OPINION
One of my school girl friends is not happy. In fact two of them were having a wee bit of a grumble on our group Facebook page.

It started with a photo of rubbish. One school girl and her hubby love fishing. They look forward to the whitebait season every year and she posted a beautiful photo of her hubby sitting on the water's edge at Karamu Stream on opening day.

It was on of those frosty Hawke's Bay days with clear blue sky.

Yesterday, however, the photos was not a tranquil stream side shot but a pile of rubbish (as pictured) she had picked up from "a mere 10 square metres on Karamu Stream bank".

She finished that sentence with "come on, people".

A discussion ensued with comments (some of them are not printable) such as "some people are just too lazy to take their s*** back home with them.

How true. We live in a such a throwaway world. Some people would rather go and buy another clothing item than carry it back to the car.

It's pretty sad really.

No wonder our waterways are in so much trouble and whitebait are becoming more and more elusive.

There's not enough room in the streams for them because they are full of rubbish that humans can't be bothered to take away and dispose of properly or even better — reuse.

The rubbish collecting school girl said she had been asking the council for years for more rubbish bins along the stream and signs.

She also felt that the high cost of dump fees made it all 10 times worse. "I know these things won't stop some people being pigs but it might be an incentive to others to do the right thing."

She was planning on putting the rubbish in her car and sorting out the recycling with the remaining bits going in her wheelie bin.

Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.

One of the other girls wanted to know why it was hard for people to carry their doggy poo bag home after picking it up from her lawn.

It amazes me that people actually do that. They carry the bag with them while walking their dog but when they need to use it they leave it behind for someone else to pick up.

As I was writing this column, news broke of a community case of Covid in Auckland. Not the news any of us wanted to hear but also not unsurprising.

At the time of writing it was not known if it was linked to the border or managed isolation.

The public has been asked to be prepared for a Covid outbreak for a number of weeks now although I'm not sure how one should prepare.

Buy some toilet paper perhaps? No, I'm joking — don't rush out and buy all the loo paper, instead if you haven't already go and get the Covid vaccine. I've had my first one and believe me, it's no big deal. Painless and quick.

Contrary to false information on social media the Government cannot now track my every move. Why would they want to?

Get your information from official sources such as the Ministry of Health. They know what they are talking about.

Linda Hall is Hawke's Bay Today's assistant editor