Letter Of The Month: Stop Polluting Our Neighbourhood

By Wally Wintle (Rtd) of Bondi on July 26, 2011 in Other

Dear Beast, I have a question for the local community and Waverley Council regarding what I believe is a serious environmental problem for our streets.

How does a weekly magazine called The Wentworth Courier have permission, and the authority, to distribute their magazines all over our footpaths and pollute the neighbourhood every week?

I have written on a number of occasions to the magazine without reply, so I called the publishers to ask that multiple copies of The Wentworth Courier are not thrown randomly across the entrance to my home. I spoke to a Wentworth Courier representative last month and asked why is a man driving a car allowed to distribute the magazines by throwing them out of his window as he drives through the streets at a continual speed of less than 10km/h?

The representative assured me this method of distribution was not sanctioned by the magazine, and that The Wentworth Courier does not organise or endorse this dangerous, irresponsible action.

And despite giving my address to be excluded, the next week another load of the magazines arrived on my door!

The ridiculous amount of Wentworth Courier magazines all over our footpaths every Wednesday afternoon results in many copies being left on local footpaths and in front of residences for days.

Since when does one household need multiple copies or, for example, a block of flats with six apartments need up to twenty copies strewn all over the place? Is anyone else fed up with this urban pollution?

How does any company have the right to dump magazines onto streets from a car window by a motorist driving at a dangerously slow speed? Why are Waverley Council and the RTA not aware or taking action against the Wentworth Courier publishers after years of this dangerous, arrogant commercial practice being ignored?