Dealing with waste also our business

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

It was heartening to learn of the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre's success in winning a national award this week.

As a regular down at the Maria Place depot, I basked in a smidgen of reflected glory.

I dump the family's recyclables (I mustn't call it rubbish) about twice a week - in between sticking the rubbish bin (I can safely call that rubbish) by the kerbside every Tuesday morning.

It is the kind of steady routine that gets you thinking about the amount of waste we produce, what we do with it - and what we can do about it.

The Resource Recovery Centre won the community innovation gong at the NZ Sustainable Business Network Awards in Auckland on Tuesday. I remember when the network was first formed - it has grown exponentially with our waste problem and the awards are now in their 12th year.

Sustainable business has become all the rage - and why not? If the damage to the reputation of those businesses that pollute can be measured in dollars and cents, then the same can be done for those "good citizen" firms who find a sustainable way to deal with their waste and byproducts.

It makes good commercial sense to be well thought of by your potential customers and, in addition, recycling and finding a way to make use of waste can cut costs and save a company money.

So there is some momentum to move away from our disposable, throw-it-in-the-trash society, but more needs to be done.

Get a couple of sturdy reusable shopping bags and take them to the supermarket, then you can do away with those awful plastic shopping bags which are as destructive (often slowly killing wildlife when dumped) as they are indestructible (it takes hundreds of years for plastic to decompose).

Better still, the supermarkets should stop providing them - such a move would make me a loyal customer.

Christmas is coming, and it makes me glum. I recall going to a waste station a few days after Christmas one year and adding our contribution of discarded packaging to a vast ocean of the stuff.

There was your Christmas cheer - jettisoned at great expense only a couple of days after the big event. Money wasted; waste created.

Chinese President Xi Jinping says his country's relationship with New Zealand is now closer than ever just days after Wanganui launches a Chinese-language version of its tourism website.

Coincidence? I think not.