30 November 2005

Meadow Fresh protest "great to see" - Greens

Green Party Spokesperson on Waste Nandor Tanczos is congratulating those people who today protested outside the Meadow Fresh Christchurch plant in support of milk in glass bottles.

"It is great to see people taking action. The group included individuals and businesses who value the environment and social advantages that come from milk in glass, and they have a right to be heard."

Businesses that had made an ethical decision to internalise at least part of their waste costs, by reusing glass bottles, were having that option removed by Meadow Fresh, Nandor says.

"The underlying problem is that legislation promotes corporate welfare, where local communities pay for big companies' waste disposal. We need some regulation to require extended producer responsibility".

Nandor also replied to some of the claims being made by Steve Bush of Trees for Canterbury about reuse and recycling of Tetra Pak containers.

"Trees for Canterbury reuses cartons, and we totally support their work. The truth is, though, that they cannot handle all the current flow and will not be able to deal with the expected 25,000 extra cartons a day when Meadow Fresh stops supplying milk in glass.

"Cartons can be recycled overseas, but there are no facilities in this country to recycle them. In addition the use of fused card and plastic cartons has made recycling not viable for most operations, as the materials need to be separated before they can be reprocessed.

"The rule of thumb is: reduce, reuse, recycle. There is no question that ditching milk in glass is going in the wrong direction," Nandor says.

ENDS

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