My Account
Waste mismanagement
The establishment of a mega landfill (i.e. pollution) site fed by 300 trucks per day on 1000 hectares of forest and farmland in the Dome Valley could be quite a money-spinner (MM November 14). After all, the owners can rely on an uninterrupted flood of plastic junk, uneaten food, unused building materials, manky mattresses and defunct batteries from a burgeoning Auckland for many years to come. The owners call themselves Waste Management. Surely this is a piece of post-modern irony. To manage something means to deal with it or control it. We all know that garbage, as the scourge of consumer society, is out of control. Perhaps the owners should reconsider their name; Waste Relocation would be more appropriate. Or Waist Management, should Auckland’s sprawl be construed as obesity. My guess is that protests by those directly affected (Dome Valley and Wayby residents) will be ignored. Then Council will authorise it and it will go ahead anyway. That’s how it works.
Hugh Major, Matakana
Planning fail
I am slightly flabbergasted after reading “Planning despair as privacy goes out the window” (MM November 14).
The Unitary Plan only became operative in September 2016 after a public consultation process that presumably took residents’ opinions into account. It beggars belief, then, that only two years later a building can breach it in not just one but at least three ways and for this not be notified to neighbours.
There is something very broken with the planning process to allow this to happen.
Fleur Auber, Warkworth
Vege troubles
I was appalled to read the vegetarian-biased article written by Christine Rose (MM October 31) condemning the meat eaters of the world. She seems to think that meat eaters contaminate the environment more than vegetarians.
Her reasons for this are indeed spurious. She declares that meat eaters create 2.5 times the greenhouse gas emissions than vegans. She gives no reasoning as to how she arrives at this conclusion. As far as I am aware, meat eaters do not fart any more then vegans. Moreover, there is no costing to establish the huge use of fossil fuels and machinery used to grow vegetables.
The amount of fuel used on animal farms is minute compared to the amount used on arable farms and market gardens. Then, as fruit and vegetables are seasonal, huge quantities are imported from various countries. These imports include those varieties we cannot produce in New Zealand – bananas, pineapple, mangos, pawpaw and other tropical fruit. So, we import fruit and vegetables and yet nearly all of our meat is grown here. What about taking into account the pollution from the air freight of these imports? To try to blame “catastrophic climate change” on the consumption of meat is totally ludicrous.
She then goes on to blame meat eating for obesity, thus causing a huge load on the health system. If she cared to investigate the main causes of obesity she would find they are: potato chips (and other fried foods), fast food (usually containing bread), vegetable oils (used for frying), soft drinks and confectionery. All these are vegetable-based foods.
Peter Georgetti, Warkworth (abridged)
[Christine Rose’s sources are included with her article online at localmatters.co.nz -Ed]
