We believe we have an obligation to give more to the future – and because the future is silent, it is our responsibility to be their voice. In Maori culture the practice of protecting the environment is referred to as kaitiakitanga. As kaitiaki (stewards) for the future, it is our obligation to protect our natural resources for the enjoyment of our future generations.
It is for this reason we think water bottling is everyone’s business and believe we should have a regulatory system in place that;
- Firstly, ensures that we have enough water for our people – both current and future – based on a consumption rate that takes population growth into consideration. This could be done by linking water rights to property titles.
- Then, make sure there’s enough for our agriculture and horticulture sectors, which are a big part of what we do here in New Zealand.
- Then, and only then, our surplus should be sold at a market rate – and the profit made should go back to the community with which it was taken from in the first place.
There are currently a number of proposed water bottling plants in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. The concept of allowing the setup of water bottling plants, granting access to our water resource without a proper price discovery mechanism, and then shipping this to other parts of the world is, in our view, a failure to fulfil our obligation to act as Kaitiaki for our resources – thus a failure to give more to our people and to the future.
As for using plastic for bottling, that’s a whole other story…
We are totally on-board with the drive to reduce the impact that plastics are having on our environment and the good news is that our friends at Scion have been working on a solution.
They’re working on developing technologies for creating plastics, adhesives, coatings, foams, pulp, packaging and fibre-composites out of renewable and locally-sourced biomaterials – a solution that could be considered (with the future in mind) to replace traditional plastic bottles.
Read a little bit more about their work here;
https://www.scionresearch.com/science/bio-based-products-and-technologies/biopolymers-and-chemicals