Microplastics now found in our waters can kill mammals and fish. Photo / file
Microplastics now found in our waters can kill mammals and fish. Photo / file
Plastic not so fantastic
It is good to see the council is taking such positive steps to improve the future of the water supply in the Whanganui region. ($6m for water upgrade, Chronicle, August 24)
Water in the Rangitikei Rivers catchment will be tested for nitrogen, phosphorous, turbidity and E.coli. It is agreed that once they set a standard, they are not allowed to go backwards. It is raising the bar every year.
That is the scheme for rural water. However there is another measurement that is vital for New Zealand – the microplastics now found in our waters. These can kill mammals and fish.
When clothes made from - plastic polyester, nylon, viscose – are washed, microplastics are washed off the clothes into the water. I have read that most groundwater in New Zealand now contains microplastics. Because the particles are so tiny, it is just about impossible to filter them out of the environment.
I have written about this to many suppliers of clothing. I was recently very disappointed to find, after purchasing "cotton" denim jeans, that they are now made with 20 per cent polyester.
I think that waters should be tested for microplastics as well, and publicity should be undertaken to inform the public of the dangers of plastic in clothes.
SARA DICKON Whanganui
A lifetime debt
Re Economy key to recovery (Chronicle, September 12): An important key is tax.
Taxes suck wealth out of provincial towns. Income tax, GST, rates and ACC levies typically siphon 40 per cent off a small business. Then add other taxes, compliance costs and fees.
Increasing taxes on a shrinking economy, as most candidates propose, is a downwards spiral.
Act's Neil Wilson has the right idea: reduce GST to 10 per cent, at least for a year, and permanently reduce income tax for the $48,000 to $70,000 bracket from 30 per cent to 17.5 per cent.
Then watch our town's economy surge ahead, and watch job opportunities grow.
This can be done without cutting super, welfare, health or education.
The key here is to reduce the Government's massive, poor quality spending.
The Government appears to be borrowing $200 billion: a stack of $100 notes 282km high. Our children will spend their lives paying it back.
We cannot tax or spend our way out of debt. Do not expect politicians, many of whom have never had a real job or run a business, to "run the economy", except into the ground.
Emmerson's cartoons are ultra left-wing at the best of times but this one on Wednesday takes the cake (Cartoon, Opinion, September 9). In his cartoon Emmerson depicts David Seymour as a fascist-seeing "gun nut".
Well yes, David will see fascism everywhere - we have a government that is working for the United Nations, not the good people of New Zealand who elected it.
Freedom of speech is being closed down. And those who contradict the Government narrative and propaganda are labeled as "conspiracy theorists".
The term "gun nut" confirms Emmerson is a totalitarian supporting, extreme left-wing propaganda tool.
The shooting public in New Zealand are not "far right, white supremacist gun nuts". We are everyday, good keen men and women who enjoy shooting sport whether it is target shooting, hunting for the pot or just to get rid of pests.
We are not nuts. David Seymour therefore is not nuts. He is one of the few politicians with the guts to stand up against the totalitarian left wing government that at present governs this poor country.
