Mortified by seaweed eyesore
My job as a volunteer VIP driver for the VolvoOcean Race stopover has been a fantastic opportunity to meet yachtsmen, their partners and sponsors. Most of our jobs require trips from the airport to the Viaduct Events Centre. I also drove an international film crew to Takapuna Beach to make an educational doco about plastics in the ocean. The cameraman was from the UK and there were actors from Chile and Ireland. They seemed happy with the location but I felt embarrassed.
The beach was strewn with seaweed decomposing in the sun and attracting flies. I understand the Tauranga Council grooms Mt Maunganui beach daily to keep it looking pristine for locals and tourists alike. I can’t help wondering why the Auckland Council is not doing the same with Takapuna and other iconic inner-city beaches?
The rotting seaweed is full of nitrogen and the cost of collecting it could be offset by mulching it and selling it back to folk for their vege gardens.
Glen Stanton, Mairangi Bay. If every car had a locator beacon, which using iPhone technology can cost as little as $30, and this was linked to a secure police network, once police recognised the registration number they could retreat to a safe distance and follow the car without causing a fatal accident.
Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay. What is it about some public servants who just don’t know how to spend taxpayers hard-earned money responsibly? On top of the Waikato DHB overspending fiasco, we now have the Hamilton mayor wanting to change his address to Kirikiriroa on a mere whim. Just imagine how much genuine good all those wasted dollars could go to, let alone the thousands more every business in Kirikiriroa will have to expend in changed stationary, signage and mapping. Thank heavens for his embarrassed councillors, it’s dead in the Waikato. Robert Burrow, Acacia Bay. My vision is that if Auckland took the money and effort from establishing bike lanes and put them into establishing a commuter car-sharing system, then traffic would so reduce that we would be able to bike down the road again. There would be little need for bike lanes.
Few people really want to drive a car in the city, but they do want to fulfil the potential of individual, complicated, urban lives. If they could truly get from A to B when they wanted to, and carry what they needed to, most people would choose to leave their cars at home. Surely, monetised ride-share services such as Uber are showing us we should urgently change our urban transport tool-kit.
The solutions that would meet our needs in this century rely on inclusive communications and IT (and bikes of course) but not on regimentation, segregation, and concrete bollards.
George Horvath, Mt Eden.
An unbiased scientific view would recognise that pastoral farming is carbon neutral. Carbon emissions are in balance with carbon absorbed by plant material grown for the grazing animal to consume.
However, with a political movement motivated by the pursuit of new taxes, the only argument presented is the one suited to the cause. A balanced view is easily sacrificed. With sheep and cattle being targeted as responsible for 43 per cent of New Zealand’s emissions, it is important this is based on sound and balanced evidence. George Williams, Whangamata. Your correspondent Jeff Hayward is a bit naive on the subject of getting rid of synthetic fibres and using natural fibres instead. World production of synthetic fibres is more than 60 million tonnes a year. To replace that with wool would require an extra 60 million hectares populated with about 10 billion sheep. If cotton, also about 60 million hectares, it would mean using an extra 1.2 trillion litres of water. It is said one pair of jeans and one T-shirt in cotton requires 20,000 litres of water.
Billions of people are today clothed in cheap, warm items made from synthetics. Also, if you want warm and waterproof, cotton and wool won’t do. If Mr Hayward wants to salve his conscience he could go through his wardrobe and look at all the little “care” labels. Anything partly or completely polyester, nylon, acrylic, elastane, Spandex etc, he could throw out.
He would lose all waterproof jackets and all lingerie. The same diligence would get rid of most of his bedding. Oil companies have got nothing to do with it, just the need to clothe a great number of people. Too many. Geoff Levick, Kumeu. Forty years ago bush tramping was challenging and attractive to Scouts, youth groups and many others. Then with TV, universal car ownership and weekend trading, interest waned. The bush reclaimed minor tracks and DoC took over and sissified main routes.
But in the Waitakeres, to the joy of many, several rugged routes remained. No more. In the dream of preserving kauri, all tracks are to be closed, then upgraded by low-skilled contractors all sure to scrupulously obey cleaning rules.
Some tracks will be reopened but offtrack excursions will be banned. So it will be goodbye to satisfying tramps in the Waitakeres. And goodbye to millions of ratepayer dollars. Bob Culver, Avondale.