The Southland District Council has prompted a two Unitary Authority local government focus for Southland.
The issues we face as a region are that Southland is very large but has low populations to support the needed infrastructure.
So the concept of two unitary authorities has some merit and is deserving of consideration. For our city, there would be only minor changes, but there is much impact for both Gore and Environment Southland, if the merger was agreed to by the Local Government Commission.
What about waste
The South still has plenty of opportunity to do better with disposing of waste including the impacts of plastic in our environment.
Our current recycling process is to isolate three types of plastics (classes 1,2 and 5) into the recycling bin with the other four (3,4,6 and 7) going into the general waste bin.
Recycle South has a plastic pelletising plant at Makarewa that takes the plastic, washes it, shreds it and forces in into small pellets that are easier to sell to China for recycling. This type of circular recycling, decreases the amount of single-use plastics that we throw away into the environment.
The system at Makarewa could be extended to take all seven classes of plastic, so nothing needs to go the landfill, where it takes hundreds of years to break down.
It worries me that we are too reliant on landfill disposal. We have too many old dumps that end up contaminating our waterways and wider environment.
If I had my way, we would isolate cans, bottles and plastics into recycling bins and everything else including green waste and food scraps would be incinerated in a large complex.
I saw this in Kumagaya, Japan, last year. Their incinerator plants burn their waste and in doing so, generates heat that is a source of by-product energy source for local schools, hospitals, etc.
I know there is a consent application paused in Waipa (Waikato) after hundreds of public submissions opposed to the consent needed, but many environmentally strict countries like Japan, Sweden, Germany and others, use this means of waste disposal.
I think there is a bit of fear of the unknown, not in my backyard and low trust in the technology.
We need to deal with micro-plastic contaminating our rivers and oceans, so if incinerating saves our land and sea environments, I say bring it on.
Let’s support Dunedin Hospital
Each year that goes by, there is another cry that the new Dunedin Hospital has blown its budget even though it has hardly started construction.
The planning was 16 years in the making.
This facility is real important to us as our regional hospital. In an ideal world, Invercargill would have our needs met locally and there would be no post-code delivery (the more rural you are, the lesser the service). We already have a claim in for a Southland Hospital upgrade for an addition 1-2 theatres, 40+ beds and a new emergency department. While that is lodged, your guess is as good as mine on where we sit in the ministry’s capital expenditure list of priorities.
So we are super reliant on the expertise that is Dunedin Hospital and the Otago-based medical school and its knowledge.
I acknowledge that capital building projects are always open to budget blowouts and funds are tight, but what I don’t want to see is services that were scheduled for the new hospital, get left behind in small, unco-ordinated, outdated outreach buildings.
For someone who has used the hospital recently and is involved in our local kidney society, it is imperative they do it once and do it right. A bit like our new museum.
There are few services more important than hospitals, ambulance services and rescue helicopters. They have to be top of the priority list.— Nobby Clark, Invercargill mayor
