Runner frustrated at dog poop tosser

Runner Jackie Russell takes seriously Mahatma Gandhi’s advice to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

That thinking has led her to risk her neck scrambling down muddy banks to gather up and properly dispose of plastic bags full of dog poop.

The poop has been thoughtlessly tossed from the Sesquicentennial Walk, which runs alongside the Mahurangi River and ends at Shoesmith Domain.

Jackie runs along the walk about twice a week.

She is often appalled by the amount of litter she sees, but describes the bags of poop as “just too much.”      

She has taken to regularly detouring off the walk to engage in a one-woman crusade to clean up the mess, but says it’s become a never-ending task.

On one occasion, she managed with great difficulty to retrieve one bag full of poop only to find many more nearby.

“Imagine my shock when I had my arms full of a poop bag, bottles and cans, and then I discovered about 10 more bags in another spot, closer to the river,” she says.

Most of the bags are dumped under the bridge that carries traffic along SH1, close to Shoesmith Domain.

The size of the turds suggests a small dog.

Jackie believes someone must be dumping the poop on a daily basis.  

She says she does not want to become angry and bitter with the person doing it but believes they can’t understand the environmental damage done by discarding plastic and faeces so close to a waterway.

She urges the offender to show more consideration and suggests they stretch their legs just a further 100 metres to Shoesmith Domain, where the poop can be properly disposed of in a rubbish bin.

“We all have a responsibility to keep our waterways clean,” she says.