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Even Rural Dogs Protest Waste Dumping

Human excrement, used toilet paper, dirty nappies, tampons and waste water is amongst rubbish being left in rural communities and the countryside by a growing number of freedom campers.

Rural Women New Zealand has recently surveyed its members on the environmental impact of the increasing use of “sleeper vans” with no on-board sanitation facilities. Responses from all over the country indicate that the thoughtless actions of some tourists are having a visible, and possibly detrimental public health impact, on the rural landscape.

“Even the dogs cross to the other side of the road when they come across human waste’, said a RWNZ member from Owaka, whose son regularly shifts stock along a road in the Catlins area. “There are several little lay-by areas along the way that are kept mowed and tidy by DoC, but are often used by freedom campers for an overnight stay. Of course there are no toilet facilities so people dump anywhere.”

Rural Women New Zealand national vice president, Liz Evans, said that members had first highlighted the freedom camping issue in 2008 and representations had been made to the newly formed Freedom Camping Forum at that time asking for a commitment to educate and inform tourists about their rights and responsibilities regarding the safe disposal of waste from sleeper vans.

“We welcome tourists to the countryside, but we are not living in the middle ages here when sewage was dumped in the streets , deposited on the river banks, or in the bush. Neither do we want farmers’ food production paddocks and vineyards contaminated”, Mrs Evans said.
“Feedback on this issue has come from members as far north as Kaipara Harbour, to the Marlborough Sounds, Golden Bay, Canterbury , Otago and Southland. A common theme has been real concern about the environmental impacts on the land and waterways caused by indiscriminate dumping of human waste.”

Rural Women New Zealand has written to the Tourism Association NZ, which met last week, to ask what progress has been made in the last two years. Many Rural Women New Zealand members are calling for the mandatory fitting of porta loos in sleeper vans, or banning the vans altogether, as well as more public education about legal effluent dump sites and a consistent local government policy on road side camping, Mrs Evans said.

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