The birth of a mini labasse

Do you, can you remember how neat and squeaky-clean were our roadsides in the week or three before we hosted the Miss Universe contest?

The gentleman who hailed me by name in the new, neat, squeaky-clean piazza of the National Library obviously had fond memories of those few weeks when he asked me to highlight the state of those roads today. Musing on his words I found the following piece among my yellowing press cuttings, which, I hope, may persuade a few more of us to think twice before dropping the least bit of litter anywhere in public — including the depths of the bush . . . “When Errol flung a chicken n’ chips box (bones and plastic fork included) out of a route taxi at 7 pm one Saturday night, he never thought it could inspire a feature in the Sunday Press. It wasn’t much of an eyesore. It was just one box.

The next stray dog to pass that way would eat the bones. The rain would soak the box to a soapy-grey pulp of cardboard, wax and roadside grit. Only the small plastic fork would remain there for the next six months — or however long it took the sun to destroy that piece of plastic. In the meantime, who would notice a small white plastic fork? Around 7.15 pm along came teenagers Clyde and Karl, driving Clyde’s father’s luxury car while draining the last drops of liquid from cartons of juice. Half a kilometre before they reached Errol’s abandoned chicken n’chips box, Clyde slowed the car, pressed a button and the electrically-operated window whined down. A blast of hot, humid air rushed into the air-conditioned car while Clyde tossed out the cartons, complete with plastic straws. He pressed the button again, the window slid up and Clyde drove on.

The juice cartons tumbled end over end to come to rest a metre or two away from Errol’s chicken n’chips box. There were now three pieces of garbage by the roadside — but it didn’t look too bad as yet, just untidy. It was around 7.30 pm when Basdeo and Anisa, Ibrahim and Jaitoon passed that spot in a small car. They all preferred the popular imported soft drinks in ring-topped cans to the locally manufactured juices in tetra packs. Rings and tins clattered as they hurled all four out of the car. They left behind what had now become a chequerboard of cans and rings, cartons and plastic straws — and the original chicken n’chips box and bones — nor should we forget the plastic fork. With seven pieces of garbage strewn along the roadside, it was beginning to look a mite untidy,

Meanwhile Ken and Iris and Winston and Joy, Avelina and Carmen and David and Frank were all in a chartered PTSC bus tucking into the pizzas they’d bought before they boarded the vehicle. At 7.45 pm, the boxes and napkins and bits of pizza they couldn’t finish sailed out of the windows of that PTSC bus to join the rings and cans and cartons and chicken n’ chips box — and that plastic fork. By this time the roadside was not a pretty sight. The night wore on. Careless of the returns on empty bottles, “Fingers” Tom, “Smartman” Dick, “Sneakers” Harry thought they might as well add not only crown corks, but their empty beer bottles to the roadside garbage collection. As the night wore on more crown corks and bottles, more cans and ring tops, more cartons and straws and chicken n’ chips boxes (and forks) were added to that growing garbage heap.

Daylight came. Seeing the heap, passers-by on foot added their quota of empty cigarette packs and cartons, plastic bags and whatever else they found far too heavy to carry to the nearest garbage bin — or to their own homes. As he drove along that road around midday, the new Labasse attracted the attention of the driver of an old American automobile. He slowed, then drove on. The following night he returned, stopped, got out of his ageing car, opened the trunk, dragged out an old mattress and heaved that on top of the heap, which, by now, was an established garbage dump.

Days went by. Each day more chicken n’chips boxes, ring-topped cans, tetra packs and straws, used tissues, cigarette packs and assorted small empty boxes were tossed on that dump. Each night cars came, stopped, the trunk opened, there were grunts and groans of something heavy being hauled out of the car and on to the dump. Dawn revealed a rusting gas stove or washing machine or set of wrecked Samsonite dinette chairs and a table missing one leg on top of, or spreading outwards from the heap. Another dawn might see eight sheets of rusting galvanise, a cardboard box of builder’s rubble, a bag of household garbage.

As the weeks wore on, coconut branches, tree trimmings and garden rubbish of every shape and size were dumped on that heap together with rusting iron bedsteads, half a bicycle, an overstuffed armchair leaking stuffing and termite dust. And more and more boxes and bottles, cans and cartons. Eventually along came Press photographer C D Liter who, seeing what looked like a good shot for a feature in the Sunday paper that was in the throes of an anti-litter, clean scene campaign, asked the taxi driver to stop. He heaved his heavy camera bag out of the taxi. Checked that he had film in the camera — noting a box that had once held film on the heap. He took several shots to make sure he had the most dramatic photo. And that was how Errol’s chicken n’chips box laid the foundation for a big feature photo in the Sunday Press. But, as Errol knew quite well, not a single reader could see his chicken n’ chips box — or the small plastic fork . . .”