Are you a Polluter

Pollution! A much bandied term in recent years.

With the promotion of Conservation Week, which commences on July 31, the control of pollution and the preservation of the countryside, both locally and nationally, will be uppermost in the news.

Locally, steps are being taken to obviate the major causes of industrial pollution.

The abattoir is undergoing extensive upgrading and this includes the joining of its effluent disposal setup to the city sewerage system. When completed, pollution of the beach in that area will be a thing of the past.

Most of the effluent from the canneries is already discharged into the city sewerage system and progress is being made to include the rest. Other companies with trade waste problems are also working with the City Council to improve their outlets.

The exception appears to be the Freezing Works which is still discharging finely divided fats and blood at Kaiti, disfiguring the beach and blotting the scene from the Cook Memorial Plaza, making a mockery to every visitor of our claim to New Zealand's most beautiful beaches.

The problem, we are told, is that the works is unable to discharge into the city sewerage system because (a) their waste discharge (which occurs during working hours) does not fit in with the city sewerage system, as effluent has to be kept moving all the time and (b) the salt water used by the company in conveying its waste could have a detrimental effect on the concrete in the sewerage system. In which case, how about an evaporatory unit to get rid of the water thus leaving the solids in a disposable form? There must be something.

However, these problems (which cannot be cured overnight by the wave of a wand) should be no more in the not too distant future.

It is the continuing polluters who should be seeing the error of their ways and doing their part to eliminate the problem. These are the very immaturely minded people who think it is smart to break bottles around the place, the untidy twits who toss rubbish from cars without a thought, and the dumb-dumbs who drop litter in the streets without a care. We hate to think what their homes must be like inside!

So in a nutshell conservation means keeping the country clean, healthy and undesecrated for ourselves and our descendants.