Whakatāne resident frustrated by doggy bag misuse on walkway

A resident of a property adjacent to Warren Cole Walkway is fed up with having to decorate her fence with Whakatāne District Council-provided doggy poo bags.

Julie Meekel would like the council to move the dispenser to a position where it would be less tempting for children walking and biking to school to grab them, creating one long streamer from the dispenser to the Landing Road Bridge.

Meekel’s fence is often strewn with what looks like green streamers.

“This is not an early St Patrick’s Day display,” she told the Whakatane Beacon.

“A child riding his bike thought it was hilarious to grab the bags and keep riding along the Warren Cole Walkway.

“This is the result.”

Streamers along Warren Cole Walkway could easily be mistaken for an early St Patrick’s Day display. Photo / Supplied

The plastic bags come from the dispenser located at the Powhare St entrance to the walkway. There are others in locations about town, but Meekel believed this to be the one that was targeted as it is right beside where children walk to school.

She said it was a regular occurrence along the walkway, sometimes happening daily. She believed the council checked the bag dispensers every day, replenishing them.

“One of our neighbours picked them all up this morning and put them on our deck,” she said.

Meekel has become known to dog walkers as she ties them to her fence rail where they can be grabbed while walking past.

“Within 48 hours they will all be gone. The dog walkers love them,” she said.

She didn’t always get the opportunity to help rescue the bags as people sometimes picked them up and threw them in the rubbish.

“Dog owners get fed up because it is about the only thing we get from our dog registration.

“Also if there are no plastic bags and the dog, registered or unregistered, does what dogs do well when running outside, then we are left in dog poo.”

“All [the council] would have to do is put the dispenser down a bit, on the grass where you walk off Powhare Street,” Meekel said.

“We’d be happy to do it for them. It would mean the dog walkers would have to take about four steps extra. Where it is, is right on the walkway.”

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.