According to the Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand discards 17.49 million tonnes of waste each year. Of this, 12.59 million tonnes are sent to landfills. Within that, says the website recycle.co.nz, are 352,000 tonnes of packaging waste – approximately 42% of the 735,000 tonnes consumed. In the context of the Ministry’s figures, I’m not sure how accurate the website’s numbers are, but for the purpose of this they serve an illustrative purpose.

Last year, as with most everything, the pandemic caused my local soft-plastics collection service to be suspended. Not the kerbside collection – the bins located at various spots (a local Countdown in my case) for the public to deposit their collection of soft plastic waste. Access to these bins resumed some months later and, for a couple of months, all was well. Until the beginning of March, when our local council announced that, due to Omicron, it would halt the collection of glass and food-scraps recycling until further notice. Back in with one, out with another – and while we’re waiting, waste that could be recycled is probably going back to landfill.

This all bothers me, but not because I’m a tree-hugging environmentalist. Rather, it’s because I believe that to achieve a goal and make a meaningful impact on what is a huge undertaking – in this instance, reducing that 12.59 million number, I don’t see the overall 17.49 million decreasing – everyone needs to be in it together. On the same page. Willing, able and ready. Committed.

In short, if we’re doing it – the only way to succeed is to do it properly. That includes the service providers not compromising on their end.

And the reason I’m banging on about this small nation’s contribution to the global waste and recycling conundrum? Because it’s an example that applies widely. Protect the environment… Save the atmosphere… Stop the fossil-fuel addiction… Reduce the road toll…

Ah, the road toll. Road safety is a common theme in our ramblings at New Zealand Trucking magazine, but it’s been top of mind again since Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency launched its latest road-safety campaign, towards the end of February, as part of the Road to Zero strategy. Click here for a basic outline of the campaign and what the agency has planned for 2022, and for more opinion, click here for Nick Leggett’s column.

There’s no denying the task at hand is enormous and complex, and the stated vision of zero road deaths or serious injuries is ambitious, to say the least. The interim target of a 40% reduction by 2030 (from 2018 levels) is possibly achievable, but getting down to zero will require a herculean effort and three decades of real staying power. Personally, I believe any goal of absolute zero is simply idealistic and almost set up for failure.

The strategy outlines upgraded roading, reduced speed limits, safer vehicles, a tougher stance on substances… all the usual suspects. But these are all variables that, at best, we can only try mitigate.

The biggest variable, perhaps, is that we’re dealing with people. People who all need to be in it together. On the same page. Willing, able and ready. Committed. From legislators and law enforcement to business owners and the private motorist. But are they? Will they be in 28 years?

And like the intermittent recyclables collection, the whole thing is just words on a page if the overall execution is compromised. View almost any major roading ‘upgrade’ as an example.

That all said, I sincerely wish the government and the NZTA every success with Road to Zero. I hope the 2030 goal is achieved. Nobody wants road deaths – we’ve said as much long before Road to Zero was launched in December 2019. If things are done properly, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.