I’m certainly over all the experts and politicians telling me what a great product wool is. I’m also over reading about our representatives going to international trade shows and conferences, rapturously selling the advantages of using New Zealand wool.
Wool is a magnificent product, we all know that, but my approach would be to develop a strategy to promote wool that goes back to basics.
We should be thinking outside the square and not continuing with the failed policies of the past.
We all know that wool ticks all the boxes regarding the environment and sustainability but that hasn’t been enough to encourage the purchasing of wool products and that needs to change.
For example, while researching this article I came upon a report from 2022 telling me that the United Nations Environmental Agency had agreed to develop a plan aimed at ending plastic pollution. The competition for wool is plastic in its many forms.
I read that “Heads of state, ministers for the environment and other representatives from UN member states endorsed the resolution to proceed with the plan.”
Our Ministry for the Environment (MfE) said in June this year that we were “working with other countries on an international treaty on plastic pollution”.
It went on to outline the problem that “every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into aquatic systems alone, harming marine life and ecosystems”.
The cynic in me would suggest that if that pollution came from the agricultural sector it would be front page news but because it comes from the oil industry that’s fine.
The prime minister’s Chief Science Adviser, Professor Juliet Gerrard, has been concerned about the amount of pollution that plastics have created and published her views on our options to reduce the problem.
They include wanting a National Plastics Plan, rethinking plastics in the government agenda and the need to mitigate environmental and health impacts of plastics.
According to the UN, microplastics have “infiltrated our oceans, soil and even the air we breathe”, and “humans constantly inhale and ingest microplastics”.
Microplastics “are linked to serious health issues such as endocrine disruption, weight gain, insulin resistance, decreased reproductive health and cancer”.
In addition, 8 million tonnes of plastic flow into the oceans annually with a correspondingly toxic effect on fish. These include severely affecting marine life and microplastics residing in tissue waiting to be consumed by a third party. Plastic is also a problem with our soil as the product in landfills can “take up to 1000 years to disintegrate”.
In the United States, 32 million tonnes of plastic goes into the landfills annually and will remain there for 1000 years.
Microplastics can also have a major effect on our flora and fauna and can be present in tap water.
Imagine for a minute if that amount of pollution had been generated by farming pursuits? There would be riots in the streets.
There has been much hue and cry about nitrates in waterways but the reality is microplastics are much worse. People wring their hands about glyphosate but it is more environmentally friendly than plastic.
We need to front-foot the issue by strongly arguing for the environmental friendliness of wool versus the environmental degradation caused by plastics.
We tax fuel, why not tax plastics? Synthetic carpets would be a good start. We limit nitrogen application, why don’t we limit plastic use?
We were going to tax food production. Why not tax plastic pollution?
We tax alcohol and tobacco because of the harmful effects on health. Why not tax plastics for the same reason?
The only reason I knew about the proposed UN policy on plastics was from personal research and not from mainstream publications. I only figured we were a signatory by going through the MfE website.
Again, it was private research that showed me how environmentally destructive plastic was, how it was a major risk to our land, oceans and human health. Those stories need to be shouted from the rooftops.
As an aside, we shouldn’t pursue the issue on our own but should present it as a campaign from the wool-producing countries. Like what used to happen before New Zealand decided to go alone.
In the current debate rankings I’d give the oil companies 10 and the conservation and farming lobbies zero.
How I came onto the story was from a Greenpeace missive asking me to sign a petition opposing plastics. It called on the NZ government “to support a strong Global Plastics Treaty at the UN”. At the time of writing it had over 73,000 signatures, which should tell us that there is strong support for a move away from plastics.
That also tells me that we need to tell the story of wool a lot better than we are currently doing.
Maybe even a visit to Greenpeace to tell them what’s missing in their debate.
