Central Hawke's Bay residents should be encouraged to help clean up the Tukituki River by buying environmentally friendly products, a regional councillor says.
Hawke's Bay regional councillor Liz Remmerswaal yesterday suggested the council should ask the Central Hawke's Bay District Council to discourage the use of cleaning products containing phosphates.
The discussion followed a decision to lend the district council $800,000 to start building infrastructure to discharge wastewater to land, rather than into the river.
"This is highly relevant to what we're trying to do," she said. "Phosphorus is causing a lot of problems in the Tukituki including algae blooms.
"It's a simple thing that doesn't cost any money."
Phosphates are in many laundry detergents, dishwashing powders and liquids. Primarily a water softener in household products, phosphorus is also in fertiliser run-off from farms. Combined with other nutrients it encourages algae bloom and weed growth which chokes the river, reducing resources for other plants and animals.
Central Hawke's Bay representative Tim Gilbertson said he agreed with the principle but not the direction; the directive should be aimed at supermarkets which stocked the detergents.
Councillor Christine Scott said the council could find endless ways to ask people to improve the river, but they should not go through as a recommendation: "We could ask them to bath together to use less water. This is something to be worked on with the industry to get a more environmentally friendly and effective and cost effective product."
The recommendation was defeated five votes to four.
Councillor Eileen von Dadelszen suggested the idea would be better put to the council's environmental education team, which already encouraged the use of environmentally friendly products.
