A 30-centimetre nitrous oxide canister placed beside a football shows the size of bottles now appearing on Manurewa streets. Photo / Supplied
Nine bottles in 10 minutes.
That’s how many discarded nitrous oxide canisters Manurewa Local Board chairman Matt Winiata says he found across three local streets, with some far larger than the small silver “nangs” commonly scattered across Auckland.
The discovery prompted Winiata to front Auckland Council’s Safety and Regulatory Committee public forum today, urging councillors to press central government for urgent controls on the sale and size of nitrous oxide bottles.
Nitrous oxide is legally sold as a whipped-cream propellant, mostly in small canisters known as “nangs”. But Winiata warned councillors that bottles now appearing on local streets are up to 3.3 litres in size, the equivalent of 300 small canisters.
“The smaller ones are eight-and-a-half grams. The larger ones here are an equivalent of 80 of those,” he said.
“This is a 3.3-litre bottle, the equivalent of 2000 grams of nitrous oxide, 300 of these small ones in one sitting. It’s quite stark and very much a problem.”
Prior to the meeting, Winiata shared a photo with Local Democracy Reporting showing one of the larger canisters alongside a football for scale. At the committee meeting, he also brought several canisters as exhibits to illustrate his concerns.
Winiata said the packaging was designed to appeal to young people.
“There’s no way that a creamer like this should resemble anything close to a video game product,” he told the committee. “The imagery is identical to what you would find on Grand Theft Auto.”
One canister was labelled Miami Magic Infusion, covered in bright graphics and explosions. Another featured flaming lips similar to the Rolling Stones logo, alongside fast cars.
“If this is a hospitality product, there’s no reason why it should be dressed up like this,” Winiata said.
Councillor Julie Fairey said the issue echoed familiar gaps between industry and controls.
“It’s a little bit like some of the conversations we’ve had in the vaping space where the industry is getting ahead of regulation,” she said.
“Central and local government are trying to catch up with regulation that reflects the change in the product they’re offering.”
Fairey asked for clarity on what the council could do through bylaws as against what required government action.
“Are there things we can do before they do things? Are there things that we can lobby them to do? It sounds like you’re already under way with that.”
Councillor Lotu Fuli noted the imagery and raised concerns about access to the products.
“If you think about Fast and Furious, it’s a huge franchise and hugely popular in our area,” she said. “If it’s behind dairies, behind bakeries, you know that’s not being used by boy racers in their cars. It’s probably accessible to kids, and that’s the part that we don’t want.
“I think this should at least be raised with police so they’re aware it’s an issue.
“All of us together, local and central government, need to get ahead of it so we don’t end up with the same problems we’ve had with vapes, Pandora’s box is already open.”
Winiata said he had sought advice from lawyer Dr Grant Hewison, who suggested the Ministry of Health and the council’s regulatory committee were the right places to raise the matter.
He proposed measures to limit harm, including capping the maximum size of bottles sold for hospitality use, requiring minimum-quantity sales to create a cost barrier, restricting supply to licensed businesses with sales records kept for 12 months, and introducing plain packaging rules to prevent marketing to young people.
“If we can’t outlaw these products, then they should at least be capped, controlled, and recorded,” Winiata said.
Committee chairwoman Josephine Bartley said Winiata’s presentation showed the need for swift advocacy.
“The committee carries some weight,” she said. “I’m really keen for the committee to get behind you and get that information we need, and see what other levers we can use on this issue.”
Bartley highlighted the committee had previously written to ministers about vaping issues, with its shopfront recommendations being adopted.
Councillors then resolved to request staff to come back with options for stronger advocacy and regulation of recreational nitrous oxide use, including larger canisters.
Winiata said the larger bottles had only started appearing in Manurewa recently.
“This is all very new. This is literally a week and a half since I’ve come across all of these items, with the larger one being found on Saturday, the weekend just gone, which accelerated the need to want to present to the Regulatory Committee.”
Winata told Local Democracy Reporting, “This is going to be devastating if we can’t get on top of this, and the youth of our community will suffer incredibly.”
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