Rubbish bin concerns addressed by council
I SUPPORT the decision of the
Dunedin City Council to improve waste and recycling collections (ODT, 2.6.21).
However, I am concerned over the collection of food waste in what appears to be an open container.
We have nowhere within our house to locate such a container. Therefore, it would be placed alongside our other recycling containers outside, accessible by vermin and birds.
All food waste smells, and after seven days, the smell of the accumulation will be strong.
Some ratepayers put out their recycling the night before to meet the 7am deadline but, in any event, bins of food waste without a secure lid will be scavenged by rodents, seagulls, cats and dogs at the kerbside.
I am confident waste and environmental solutions staff at the DCC will have undertaken a risk analysis so I would be interested to know from the council how the risks will be managed.
Phil Dowsett
Kew
DUNEDIN already has a significant rat problem.
I can just visualise the rat population of Dunedin rubbing their little paws together in expectation of the proposed kitchen scrap bins lined up like dishes at an allyoucaneat buffet — not to mention the dogs and cats.
If our council is determined to force these bins on everyone, despite the large number of people, like myself, who make their own compost, then it must at least provide bins with lids (ODT, 2.6.21).
Otherwise, it’s going to be a freeforall out there like a rerun of the Middle Ages.
Pat Duffy
Opoho
[DCC waste and environmental solutions group manager Chris Henderson replies:
‘‘The graphic run by the Otago Daily
Times on June 2 was not supplied by the Dunedin City Council. We can reassure readers that the food waste bins will have a secure lid to prevent the issues that have been outlined.’’]
Gaza conflict
THERE is an incoherent argument employed in Alex Aitken’s objection (Letters, 4.6.21) to Civis’ reflections on Israel’s ‘‘oppressive policies towards Palestinians’’ (Opinion, 29.5.21).
The writer appears to think that because Hamas ‘‘is recognised as a terrorist group by the United States of America’’, any criticism of Israel’s actions is a form of ‘‘antisemitism’’.
In the first place, since when should the United States of America be regarded as a disinterested moral arbiter in Palestinian/Israeli conflict (and hardly this conflict alone)?
Second, in 2018 the United Nations General Assembly actually rejected a US resolution to designate Hamas a ‘‘terrorist organisation’’.
Third, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of language to confuse objection to Israeli government actions in Palestine with ‘‘antisemitism’’.
Since 1967, Israel has been repeatedly condemned for its occupations, annexations and settler activities. The UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of 2016 bluntly declares the latter to be a ‘‘flagrant violation’’ of international law. So, too, multiple charges of breaches of law by the International Court of Justice, the Geneva Conventions, and the International Criminal Court.
The complicity of the US in the geokleptomania of the Israeli government had no more grotesque manifestation than in 2019 with the unveiling of a new signpost renaming a Golan Heights settlement (annexed by Israel from Syria in 1981) as ‘‘Trump Heights’’.
The grubby combover coalition between expresident Trump and soontobe exprime minister Netanyahu is now coming to an appropriate close with both men currently facing serious criminal charges.
Peter Leech Belleknowes
BIBLE READING: As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. — John 15.9.