Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Halliday Park - park'n'litter

Halliday Park is a nice stretch of waterfront in Wareemba, which is just next to Five Dock.  There are several parking bays along the waterfront, and they are always covered in litter whenever I visit.  I went past one day at lunchtime and saw a couple dispose of their litter in the Wareemba way - each simply wound down their respective car window and dropped their fast food packaging on the ground next to the car.  Even though there are rubbish bins spaced regularly along this stretch, there are plenty of people that can't be bothered making the small effort to exit their car to dump their rubbish in the appropriate place.

Here is one of the parking bays, photographed before the lunchtime rush to dump a further layer of rubbish - note the bin at the end of the bay beneath the tree.


McDonalds chip packet.


Another McDonalds chip packet, plus a used condom and wrapper.


I think that's a Happy Meal box.


Chip packet, napkins and drink lids.


These four beer bottles were lined up like this when I got there.  At least they weren't smashed on the ground.  One has to be thankful for small mercies.


McDonalds sauce packet.


Coffee cups.


Close up of the coffee cups - note that both contain an empty cigarette packet.  At least they decided to dump only one bit of rubbish each rather than two.  This probably counts as being neat and clean for whoever did this.


Can't leave the park with leaving a bit of graffiti behind.

This is not the only park to suffer like this - other waterfront sites around Canada Bay and Leichhardt suffer the same problem.

Some people are just grots.

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Update - I guess the question we should all be asking is, "What do we do about this?"

My initial response is that the residents across the road should be standing up and taking 'ownership' of the parking bays outside their houses.  I walk up and down my street once a week or so and pick up rubbish that has either blown into our street from elsewhere, or that has been dropped by uncaring grots.  The residents down there can do the same - according to the census, there are about 200 of them living in townhouses across the road.  Surely one of them can take it upon themself to do a tidy up now and again?  It's not that hard.

It will never get cleaned up if the residents continue to treat it as somebody else's problem.

Unless of course the residents themselves are the source of all this litter.

1 comment:

DM said...

Good blog. If you live anywhere within walking distance of a restaurant with take-out, you'll find packaging litter everywhere. I think the restaurants should be made responsible in some way.

Like the Douglas Adams reference too.