Labour governments just love to ban things. Remember Helen Clark’s showerheads and lightbulbs? Some say it cost her the 2008 election, but she was on her way out anyway. Once Labour got back into power, however, it was back to the future. They just cannot help themselves in their determination to control everything we do, say, buy or eat.
So as you all know, in order to save the planet and the turtles, the government has already banned ‘single use’ plastic bags. And now, we have a new raft of bans to come. Wait for it…
… plastic cutlery, fruit stickers and cotton buds.
Well, that will save the planet, won’t it?
The Government will move to ban non-compostible fruit stickers today in response to a huge new report about single-use plastic, Stuff understands.
It’s understood the Government will also move to ban plastic cotton buds and single-use plastic cutlery, items which both have biodegradable alternatives made out of bamboo.
Compostible apple stickers do exist but are not in wide-use.
Stuff.
Apple stickers are annoying, I grant you, but only because they are fiddly little devils that stick to anything and can often end up being eaten inadvertently, but amongst all the terrible evils that are rapidly destroying our planet and our way of life, apple stickers do not immediately spring to mind. As for plastic cutlery… well, I absolutely hate the things, but what are airlines going to do now? Oh yes, that’s right. They are going to use bamboo, which is another substance in short supply nowadays.
Do have a read of this article, from 2012 if you are unsure about that. You just know that the next poster boy for climate change, (now that polar bears have reached unprecedented numbers), will be the giant panda.
The problem with fruit stickers is a simple one. They are not stuck onto apples for our benefit. They are put onto fruit for export. Rather than having the extra cost of running 2 lines of produce (one for local consumption and one for export), producers simply put the stickers on everything, but even if you are a fruitarian (?), your rubbish bin at the end of the week is not exactly full of the little stickers. They have usually, conveniently, stuck themselves to something else in the rubbish and are essentially invisible.
I do have a problem with plastic waste, but it is nothing to do with fruit stickers. It is this.
Now that we no longer send our plastic waste overseas, we have a delightful situation where many councils will no longer collect plastics, so they have to be thrown away.
New Zealanders are very innovative. We already have one entrepreneur using recycled plastics to make fence posts and various similar fledgeling industries are trying to get established. I would like to see the government encourage initiatives to recycle plastics, rather than simply ban things, or in the case of tip fees, simply increase taxes with the idea that it will force people to recycle.
The point is that I CAN’T RECYCLE THOSE PLASTICS. I have no choice but to throw them away, thanks to the blind ideology of this government.
So, instead of encouraging innovation, this government simply uses the big stick approach and either bans things, or charges excessively for the privilege of throwing stuff away when there really is no viable alternative.
But hey. Fruit stickers. How brilliant. We are about to save the world, one fruit sticker at a time. Magic.
And if the phrase ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ is floating around in your head, you are not alone.
