Letters: What's wrong with what we've got?

Kerbside recycling

Regarding your front-page item on recycling (June 4) and the mayor's reported comments on this subject, my suggestion is that he cease bowing down to "newbies" and trying to change the habits of Wanganui citizens when it should be the "newbies" who adapt to Wanganui systems.

There is a perfectly good and popular recycling system already running in Wanganui. Did the mayor forget to mention it? Did he mention that the city already subsidises the recycling centre to the tune of $175,000 a year?

Perhaps if the "newbies" did their own recycling using the current facilities they might get themselves out and about to see what really makes Wanganui tick.

Regarding recycling itself, Cr Vinsen was quoted as raising the problem with plastics.
However, a larger problem starting to concern the international community is dumping of recycling materials and rubbish from outside countries into Africa. The money paid is going straight into the hands of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. Is it morally correct to have landfills in Africa taking our products just because we don't want to use New Zealand landfills? Sounds like nimbyism. The old "I've done my bit by getting it to the gate" is not good enough!

While recycling is an admirable goal, it can't be turned into a "spray and walk away" process. Those handling it would have to provide guarantees, backed by suitable proof, that all Wanganui's recycling was handled legally through the whole process. It would not be good enough to just say, "Oh yes, there are no problems with the folk we deliver to."

Why the sudden rush? Council documents already say the earliest any new system could start is 2020-21. Citizens who may not have read the 10-year annual plan may not realise the proposal could add close to $300 per year to their rates bill. That is just the current council figure.

The council will, as usual, let a contract to cover the recycling. Always a great way to have no responsibility for any operational problems.

Finally, something not mentioned, let alone hinted at: Will the council abandon the current successful recycling centre to its own devices? Hardly a fair way to treat a Wanganui business that is doing so well.

G J MOLES
Castlecliff

Shot down

I disagree with parts of Fred Frederikse's opinion (Chronicle, June 5).

In 2001, the Ukraine held anti-aircraft drills and shot down a Russian airliner, killing everyone on board. In 2014, the US held massive anti-aircraft drills in the Ukraine, and a Malaysian airliner was shot down, killing everyone on board.

America, Australia, Britain, Ukraine and the Netherlands blame Russia. Malaysia has never blamed Russia.

The US had satellites overhead, a Boeing 747 AWCS radar plane in the sky, and radar ships at sea. The "black boxes" were downloaded at RAF Farnborough. The Ukrainian military seized the radar tapes from Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk airports. All this information is top secret. We will never know the truth. The buk [missile] explodes perhaps 100m from the plane and showers it with shrapnel.

The bits of missile land far away from the plane wreckage. MH17 wreckage shows no sign of buk damage. It appears the left engines were hit by a heat missile (which buk is not), and caught fire. This explains why the plane U-turned to the left.

The cockpit has many small round entry holes on the right side, possibly from a high velocity 30mm machine gun, and large jagged exit holes from debris.

ALAN DAVIDSON
Gonville

Slaughter songs

Sandra Kyle, an apparent zealot who wants to sing to the animals at Imlay meatworks (Chronicle front page, June 2), has apparently forgotten the welfare of the "animals" at the top of the food chain — the humans who run Imlay and those who work "on the floor".

I believe in freedoms that don't impact on others' rights, but given Sandra may have no relevant Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) training, she could potentially endanger herself, the rights of workers at Imlay to a safe workplace, and the hygiene requirements of Imlay's customers. For the record, I taught OSH in Christchurch and worked in meatworks in the South Island, as a provider of food-safe rated technology, for years.

Sandra Kyle would also need to wear meatworks-approved clothing "whites", and use the disinfectant foot-baths on site before she would be allowed any closer to animals. The lady has discovered that abuse is the price paid for insisting upon her freedoms, yet forgetting her attendant responsibilities.

Meatworkers tell it exactly as they see it. With the best will in the world, my advice must be similarly direct: Get used to it, get responsible or get out.

There is also a monetary cost, another responsibility Sandra has possibly overlooked. Is she willing to pay the extra allowances for the meat workers to work around her perceived intrusiveness? For I can assure her, they won't do it for nothing if she pushes her way in, as her reported stubbornness indicates. I too love animals. Sing to them and pay the price in safe practices and money in a hard and dangerous workplace — with permission — or don't.

STAN HOOD
Aramoho

Send your letters to: The Editor, Wanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Wanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz