Lee Suckling: I'm ashamed of this dirty Kiwi habit

Just because nobody can see you, or nobody will say anything, doesn't mean littering is permissible. Photo / Getty Images

Once upon a time, we used to call people "litterbugs".

If this term – one that describes a person who throws their rubbish on the ground – sounds primary school, it's because it is. "Litterbug" is what teachers used to call us when we were naughty, rubbish-dropping kids, in a bid to help us learn about personal responsibility when it comes to the environment, and hopefully take the lesson into adulthood.

It appears that message didn't stick with a lot of New Zealanders. Urban streets have litter dropped on them every day. No, it's not in big, noticeable piles. It's spaced out (but frequent) droppings, often in gutters, street berms, and even the gardens of others.

Within 10 minutes' walk of my house there's a Burger King, KFC, and a McDonald's. All of them are open late or 24 hours. Most mornings when I walk my dog, I'll find branded brown paper bags, soft drink cups, and often discarded fast food itself from the night before. It's not everywhere – litter on one street here, another street there – but you really do notice it when you walk the same daily loop.

Fed up with how dirty Kiwis can be, my husband went to a hardware store a few weeks back and purchased a "litter picker", which is essentially a large claw that enables you to pick up rubbish without touching it by hand. Every 20-minute dog walking loop we'll fill up an entire supermarket bag with trash. It's disgusting. And it's repetitive – when you think you've got it all, you do your walk again the following day only to find more.

My husband was stopped by a neighbour recently and asked what he was doing with this claw-like device. "Just picking up rubbish", he replied, before being met with a perplexed look, as if the neighbour was wondering why he wasn't wearing an orange jumpsuit. "That's very good of you," the neighbour finally said.

In New Zealand there's a $400 fine for littering, but nobody is caught in the act very often. In the case of my area and the late-night fast food droppers, presumably they do it because there isn't a single other person on the street to see them when it's dark.

Even tidy Kiwis don't know what to do. In a Seven Sharp social experiment last year, people were reluctant to call out litterbugs for fear of getting their "heads kicked in". Yet only two of 12 passers-by will pick up somebody else's litter; the rest will just keep walking.

I can't imagine the audacity of dropping rubbish on the ground and just walking away. I currently feel guilty about the odd occasion in my life I've thrown an apple core out the car window into the bushes on a country road. To simply drop your rubbish – hard, non-biodegradable rubbish – because you've decided you're "done" and absolve yourself of any responsibility is blatant disrespect. Disrespect for your surroundings, your fellow Kiwis and your environment. Disrespect for yourself.

I'm also rather perturbed that my city council – which provides no curbside rubbish collection and forces ratepayers to use third party services – clearly has no interest in cleaning up its streets. There are no local campaigns or initiatives to combat this problem.

While the real onus of course rests on every individual who litters, I want to place some blame on the fast food companies that have no duty-of-care about the neighbourhoods which they profit from. By staying open very late, or never closing, these companies increase their revenues by a tidy sum yet do nothing about what happens to the packaging they've manufactured, and is so-quickly discarded within the vicinity of their premises.

There are two other issues at play here. If an organised body is to pick up litter, it tells litterbugs that "somebody else will do it" and thus they will continue polluting. Yet if you leave rubbish on the ground, it creates an immediate culture of permission for the next person to do it (you feel a lot less guilt dropping your fast food bag on the ground if you can already see another one littered ahead of you).

So we must come back to personal responsibility. Just because nobody can see you, or nobody will say anything, doesn't mean littering is permissible. If you buy something, once you're done with it, put it in a damn bin.

Maybe that means holding on to it for longer than you're comfortable with. That's something we all just have to get on with. This culture of litterbugging makes me ashamed.

Dirty Kiwis, you need to change your attitudes. Those who pick up after you are sick of it.