Pick up 5 – the WHY There will always be litter – whether wind-blown from a bin, needlessly dropped by the uncaring or accidentally set adrift by fate – it’s what we do with it once it is created that matters. It is very easy to walk past litter knowing that you had no hand in it getting to be there.
Clearing litter from our public spaces and waterways is too big a task for any individual, group or even the Council – there is a limit to what rates can cover!
But if lots of us each do a little bit, often, we can greatly reduce the harm of litter and restore the health and look of our shared spaces.
Pick Up 5 is a campaign that sprang out of the Covid lockdown. When we were locked into our bubbles, it was impossible to organise the annual Mother-of-All-Clean-Ups along the riverbanks of Christchurch’s rivers and its beaches. Instead, families were encouraged to clean up outside their homes by picking up 5 pieces of litter each day – if they could find them. It was amazing how little litter was to be found when retail outlets were closed!
Pick Up 5 – the HOW You are encouraged to Pick Up 5 pieces of litter when you are out in the places that matter most to you. Maybe it’s your favourite beach or the nearby hills where you walk. Maybe it’s the sports field where you play, along the walk to a cafe, the gutter in front of your house or on the route of your daily commute. It is so easy to walk past litter so the challenge is to pick it up instead – just 5 pieces – and dispose of it appropriately.
Take a bag – take it home if needs be and put it in your red or yellow bin. Take care with sharp and very dirty objects. Wash your hands when you get home.
Railing against those who drop litter is fine – but it does not get us anywhere unless we catch them in the act. It is a bit like graffiti – if it is removed quickly, it tends not to accumulate. Keep New Zealand Beautiful (KNZB) estimates that 86% of us do the right thing by binning litter. The other 14% are probably always not going to care about it. But KNZB also found that an absence of litter in an area had an effect on the behaviour of people in that area – they were more inclined to do the right thing with their rubbish if the area was litter-free.
Pick Up 5 is an on-going invitation and a motivator for us all to join the many people who already, as a daily habit, pick up litter in their neighbourhoods.