James O'Brien

It’s been driving me crazy for weeks. There’s a laneway near home, which I walk through at least twice a day, where there’s a problem with litter. Every morning there’s at least ten or twenty paper cups from what I suspected was a nearby restaurant left on the ground.

This morning I decided I would go in to ask the manager to do something about it. He wasn’t in, but I noticed the stack of paper cups identical to the ones that keep turning up in the laneway.

A few months ago, at the suggestion of someone I know, the restaurant put a garbage bin outside, and for a while the cups stopped being left in the laneway. They’ve stopped putting the bin out, and that’s presumably why the cups have re-appeared.

Every night I’ll see restaurant patrons drinking tea and smoking in the laneway, leaving their cigarette buts and cups behind.

I’ll pop in tonight to see if the restaurant might start to put that bin outside again. It’s not their fault that people feel no responsibility for their littering, and can’t walk a few metres to use the bin. But hopefully this will help.