Author predicts pollution problems ahead

Press, 12 May 1987, Page 23

Author predicts pollution problems ahead

By

DAVID CLARKSON

New Zealand is lagging in consumer protection measures against food additives and pesticides, says an English author, Dr James Bellini, who predicts problems ahead.

In his new book, “High Tech Holocaust”, the Lon-don-based writer, television presenter and communications consultant gives the world five years to come to terms with its industrial pollution problems.

He said during a Christchurch visit promoting the book that he had little hope for a solution so soon, though some progress might be made. He sees his book as part of the process, educating people to be politically active and effective, bringing pressure on producers to make changes. The book has come out of the television series, “Eco”, which he writes and narrates. He has been in New Zealand for a week, and acknowledged the country was “blessed” with a sparse population and little air pollution. But progress was needed in food additives and insecticides. He was surprised the spray, 2,4,5-T, was still made and used here.

In Europe, detailed labelling was now required on foods, and

middle-class shoppers were beginning to choose foods to avoid some of the additives. There was also a move towards organically grown food, produced using natural fertilisers and no pesticides, though it had some marketing problems. The organically grown produce was 15 to 20 per cent more expensive, and it suffered from the lack of additives used to improve appearance.

“Organic food looks dreadful, to be honest,” he admitted. Even, so, some European supermarket chains were setting up special sections for this kind of food. New Zealand had been spared the expensive problems of acid rain, caused by the huge amounts of industrial sulphur pumped into the air. It was a problem that stretched across borders, he said. Japan had spent billions of dollars solving its own sulphur dioxide problem in the 1960 s but now faced a new threat from the rise of Chinese industry and its drifting pollution. Swedish industry produced no sulphur, but the country’s pollution problems were created by its industrialised nearneighbours, Britain and Germany.

Solving that problem would be an uphill fight, Dr Bellini said.