Wellington residents plan to pay beggars to pick up cigarette butts

  • 29/11/2017
Beneficiaries advocate say it's a ridiculous and demeaning proposal.
Beneficiaries advocate say it's a ridiculous and demeaning proposal. Photo credit: Getty

A Wellington residents group is being slammed for suggesting beggars and the unemployed be paid to pick up cigarette butts.

Inner City Wellington wants the Wellington City Council to implement the scheme as a solution to the capital's litter problem.

However beneficiaries advocate Kay Brereton says it's a ridiculous and demeaning proposal.

"It is simply offensive, and quite frankly Wellingtonians should pick up their own cigarette butts and not expect the poor to do it for them," she says.

Wellington City Council is proposing making it an offence to drop cigarette butts as part of its review of the Public Places Bylaw.

Ms Brereton says there is a better way of including beggars and the unemployed in society than Inner City Wellington's idea.

"A better way is actually showing them some respect and treating them with some dignity," she says.

"These are actually people, they are our fellow citizens - and this is reinforcing that whole idea we have an underclass."

Newshub.