Changing times

Sad to read of the ending of yet another small-town industry with the abandonment of newspaper production in Nelson. The very worst feature of this is that the revenue is transferred into Christchurch, ie we grow the big city at the expense of human-scale small town.

This should not be happening in the computer age. Now is a time when the silicon chip can simplify, enhance and enable short production runs of just about anything. News printing is only one facet of this; lateral thinking - or even old-fashioned planning would never have allowed the manufacture of our railway rolling stock to disappear overseas when 3-D printing was clearly on it’s way and CAD machining already here, making third-word labour costs no longer the be-all and endall of competition.

Somehow remoteness of production, which helps the profits appear elsewhere, is triumphing over hands-on staff. If ever warning bells should have rung is was when the meals for Dunedin Hospital began being made in Auckland, for Pete’s sake.

The banter of the smoko room seems doomed to give way to the current fashion, cyber bullying; surely not? them from so-and-so’s dirty fingers, they would not need to be individually wrapped in plastic). Top that off with the new breed of environmentalist coming through our schools.

The sackbarrow is a quaint idea, however it solves nothing.

As the father of a solitary 2 year old, our little recycle bin fills up in three days, where does the remainder go? I cannot imagine how those with numerous and older children get by.

If our beloved council cannot find it in their hearts to provide us with an appropriately sized receptacle, then at least change the rules for the collectors to take the items neatly stacked in a cardboard box next to the purple recycling bin or supply more bins to those who would like them. This would even be cheaper, easier option to Mr Waters’ 50,000 at $28.65 (his numbers, not mine) sackbarrows.