Two youngsters are on a mission to make Lloyd Elsmore park litter-free.
At a recent local board meeting the Farm Cove Intermediate School students appealed to the board to increase the number of rubbish bins in the park.
“We are both frequent users of the park and we noticed the amount of trash in the part was increasing and getting annoying,” says 13-year-old Thomas Woodroofe.
“The few bins that they do have in the park are always full and not emptied nearly enough,” Shi Ming Li adds.
“And not where you needed them like round the skate park,” says Thomas.
The boys said they also frequently saw park goers littering because the nearest bin was too far away and people didn’t want to walk around with rubbish in their pockets.
The boys reached out to their local MP Simeon Brown when they didn’t receive a response back from the Auckland Council.
It was Brown who suggested the boys present their idea to the Howick Local Board and ask them to prioritise increasing the number of bins at Lloyd Elsmore.
The pair said their presentation at Monday’s Howick Local Board meeting was a success and they received positive feedback from the local board members.
“They took it well, maybe aided by the fact that we were children,” Thomas laughs.
The idea was sparked from a school project where the boys were tasked with “fixing a world problem”.
Shi Ming says the key now is to keep an eye on whether action is actually taken.
