PAPER AND RUBBER SHORTAGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1942, Page 4

PAPER AND RUBBER SHORTAGE

In view of the present terrible shortage of supplies from overseas and the rapid exhaustion of New Zealand s paper and rubber supplies, it is obvious to any thinking person that all of us will be left without papei and rubber in the very near future. Every individual in this country is wasting paper and rubpei because no authoritv takes the trouble to. organise a scheme for collecting the waste. I suggest that in every centre in New Zealand the municipal authorities should under- . wu the collection of all paper and lubber, have it roughly sorted, and laid on one side until the Government can approve of a scheme to use these waste products. We all have heard the excuse that it costs too much to sort, handle, cart and transport waste paper and waste rubber, out the cost is only in relation to the price of new material. If we pay to the N.Z. railways £1000 (N.Z. PfP? banknotes) for freight and (!v , z - paper banknotes) to the j w ? rkers for doing the work of producing, say., £10 (English) worth oi material otherwise unprocurable to New Zealand, I think we would be justified. The railways and the workers are both "ourselves," so whj' worry about the exchange of banknote tokens "between friends"? . i e arG also plenty of voluntary \\ orkers who are prepared to come in and do this work in every part of ~ew Zealand, and it is positively disgusting to think that in Auckland alone we can save 100 tons cf paper a month and could collect very easily ten-ton lots of waste rubber. ''Very day we are burying in our public tips, and burning, valuable materials in enormous quantities, out this must be stopped immediately if we are to survive. If men insist upon being paid high wages ?J?. a 40-hour week for reclaiming this scrap material, I can guarantee to provide a hand of women volunteer, 8 and teach them how to do it. Will anybody support me? B. J. DUNSIIEATH.