WASTE PAPER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 177, 29 July 1942, Page 6

WASTE PAPER

HOW TO COLLECT? ORGANISATION PROBLEM A correspondent comnjends the proposal of a business man appearing in yesterday's Auckland Star suggesting that the Internal Marketing Department should be the organisation responsible for the collection and storage of scrap rubber. He goes a step further by saying that the Department should also have control of waste paper. "It is an offence to destroy waste paper," this correspondent writes, "but what are we to do with our paper? The methods so far put into operation are haphazard and paper is accumulating everywhere and harbouring rats and other vermin." From inquiries made in Auckland it appears that a start has been made in regard to the collection of waste paper, about 50 schools on the city side of the harbour having been appointed collecting depots. The Salvation Army and the local committee of the National Council for the Reclamation of Waste Materials are the only bodies that have so far interested themselves in the problem Now that a control notice prohibits the destruction of paper it seems obvious that some better organisation than is at present available will be required to deal with the large quantities of waste paper that are now bound to accumulate.

An Auckland commercial man said to-day that a receiving depot was needed and he could think of no better store than that of the Internal Marketing Department. Paper which could not be used in New Zealand for remanufacture could be exported. He said the brown paper and cardboard position was becoming serious and that proper collection methods were absolutely necessary if the Government's policy was to be carried out. Rats and mice soon found their way to places where paper was stored in shops, offices and private dwellings and if the people were debarred from destroying It there should be some method of regular collections. Residents were not able to make up sacks of paper and take them to depots as they could not get the carriers, or the petrol if they had their own cars. A collection system he considered could be devised which would speedily bring hundreds of tons of paper to the depots.