Dear Editor,

I believe that the slogan "Your Environment Identifies You" is an appropriate one to debate our citizens attitude towards sanitation in the city.

Many young people of today are ignorant of what our city looked like in the olden days to earn its name "The Garden City." Our environment was immaculately clean. Sanitary Inspectors enforced the law through house to house inspection including mosquito control. The drains were disinfected and even the roads were watered in the early hours of the morning. The Botanical and Promenade Gardens were a scene of beauty with its lawns and flora attended to by the inmates of Camp street.

Today we see a dirty city and an uncaring public whose attitude towards better sanitation might have been influenced by the present surroundings. Many years ago in the 70's, I made my first trip to the U.S.A and visited Maryland .I went for a stroll one afternoon around the block and could not help admiring the well kept manicured lawns and lovely landscaped houses .I had a confectionery paper to discard but it was not the threat of a littering fine which deterred me, but the beautiful environment which I could not desecrate. Yet, I might have been tempted to litter in the ghetto of Brooklyn or some other state.

To change attitudes, we need role models which our city fathers have failed to provide.