Bill Dalton

I was tempted to talk about Winston Peters again this morning but I decided that if people hadn’t seen through this dreadful individual by now, they never would.

Instead I thought I would tell you about my council duties for the last week.  Dave Pipe and I are the Napier City Council members of the judging team for the Hawkes Bay Regional Environmental Awards.  The team is made up of two councillors from the Regional Council, two from Hastings District and the two of us from Napier.

And what has amazed me is the number of people who are dedicated to improving our environment.  And some of the things they are doing are really very simple yet are having a significant effect on our environment.

There are some things that are notoriously difficult to deal with.  Used tyres is an obvious one – there is no easy way to dispose of tyres.  We can toss them into the landfill but that creates huge problems.  One they fill the landfill up very quickly and two they take years to break down.

One option is to export them but what happens to them then.  I understand that China and other Asian countries import tyres from all over the world and burn them as fuel.

So whilst we are keeping our immediate environment clean, the global environment is being polluted at an alarming rate.  Having old tyres used in such a way is not acceptable and the fact that it is happening out of our sight doesn’t make it any better.

Whilst the judging process takes up an enormous amount of time, it is a really worthwhile process.  It is great to see traditionally dirty industries working so hard to clean up their discharges.  It is satisfying to see what in the past, we would have called waste, being recycled into valuable products.  And it is great to see simple recycling stations appearing in workplaces throughout the district.

The other interesting thing I’ve discovered is that often these environmentally sound practices are not at a cost to the business involved, but in fact result in more efficient work spaces, greater productivity and therefore improved profits.

We’ve got a long way to go but I’m heartened by the progress we have made in recent years towards a cleaner and healthier environment.