4 October 2004

Hazardous waste not wasted

The regular Hazmobile collection for household hazardous waste is happening on Saturday 16 October at Graham Breed Drive in Three Kings.

The popular collection sees on average 20 to 25 tonnes of material dropped off each time.

Warwick Jaine, Auckland City’s resource recovery manager, says that what the public may not realise is that a lot of the material that is dropped off is recycled or reused.

“Even though the waste is hazardous, there are ways we can use it. The story of where recyclable material is used is interesting, and I suspect a lot of people would be pleased to know that their ‘waste’ is being used in a productive way instead of being disposed of,” says Mr Jaine.

Several types of hazardous waste are reused or recycled, including: small amounts of household chemicals such as cleaners, shoe polish and car care products are reused through charitable organisations around 75 per cent of the paint collected is recycled and the final product used for anti-graffiti programmes all of the waste oil and petrol is reused to fire a large cement kiln wet-cell batteries are recycled in New Zealand and rechargeable nickel-cadmium and mercury-containing batteries are sent to France for recycling.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>