According to some, glass is perhaps humanity’s most useful material. It is sustainable, recyclable, it is pretty much impermeable, meaning what is inside will not degrade, making it ideal for food and drink storage.
Glass is an ideal substance for building. It insulates against outside noise and cold temperatures and, being transparent, allows light in and lets us see what is going on out there.
When it comes to science and technology, some of the world’s major advancements have only been possible through the use of sharp-edged glass tools and with tiny fragments of glass in myriad componentry.
It is difficult to imagine a world without glass. Yet it has a dark side, too. When it breaks, it becomes a nightmare material. Its random atomic structure means it splits in jagged chunks with extremely sharp edges. Volcanic glass, obsidian, is one of the sharpest objects known, with a cutting edge that can be only a few dozen atoms thick.
This week’s hearings on a draft replacement of the Dunedin City Council’s local alcohol policy (LAP) have focused minds on glass, the dangers it poses when it is broken and lying around, and the state of parts of North Dunedin when students have been partying.
The draft policy has several proposed changes, including amending the hours off-licence premises can sell alcohol to between 7am and 9pm, rather than 7am to 10pm, banning the promotion of alcohol on the outside of premises, and a temporary freeze on any new off-licences in an area north of the Octagon.
Of the 85 submissions the council received, 45.9% of respondents agreed there should be no more new off-licences between Moray Pl and the Gardens Shopping Centre, believing there were more than enough and too many might fuel over-consumption.
Of course, over-consumption is already a huge issue, as we know, in the streets around the University of Otago. This is why parts of Castle St and Leith St end up looking like a war zone some mornings, with smashed bottles and shattered glass everywhere, on the roads, the footpaths, in the gutters and in front gardens and driveways.
At the LAP committee hearings, university proctor Dave Scott called glass in the area a "perennial issue", saying he hated the culture of breaking bottles and spreading glass everywhere, despite efforts to clean things up over many years by students, the university and local off-licences.
Police suggested, in their submission, a ban on selling liquor in 500ml or less glass bottles from premises within a 1.2km radius of the university.
Bizarrely, supermarket chain Woolworths claimed at the hearings there had been "no engagement with the industry" to suggest any problems with glass around the university.
Woolworths can only have its head in the sand about that and about the benefits to young people and those in the area of such a temporary ban on new off-licences.
The supermarket’s national alcohol responsibility manager, Paul Radich, pulled the old would-make-it-difficult-for-them-to-invest-in-Dunedin excuse out of the hat, if the changes are implemented, and also said it would be "horrendously expensive" to only sell alcohol until 9pm rather than 10pm.
City councillors were unimpressed with Mr Radich’s presentation, with hearing committee members Cr David Benson-Pope saying it was "pretty gratuitous" and Cr Kevin Gilbert suggesting he "pick up a bloody newspaper".
Nobody should be in any doubt of the scale of the problem in the area around the university, particularly once classes start again in February.
The smashed bottles are a bad look for Dunedin. Any efforts to reduce drinking in that area among the young and potentially vulnerable need to be welcomed with open arms.
