Talleys, Ernest Adams and Yoplait are among hundreds of manufacturers and brands dumping contaminants into New Zealand s drains and getting away with it.
Frank van Betuw watches as blood red water and globs of yellow animal fat gush from Dunedin s sewers into the Green Island wastewater treatment plant. The visceral, greasy liquid will clog the filters and coat the ultraviolet lights used to disinfect the effluent. They ll have to be scrubbed clean, yet again.
Van Betuw knows where the wastewater comes from and he knows the company that dumped it down the drain isn t allowed to do it, but the Dunedin City Council senior compliance officer also fears it will happen again and again.
Companies dumping contaminants down the drain: Talleys, Ernest Adams and Yoplait identified
24 Jan, 2021 07:56 PM
17 minutes to read
Hundreds of companies have dumped contaminants into sewers in breach of their trade waste consents over the past year. File photo / Duncan Brown
RNZ
By Anusha Bradley of RNZ
Talleys, Ernest Adams and Yoplait are among hundreds of manufacturers and brands dumping contaminants into New Zealand s drains and getting away with it.
Frank van Betuw watches as blood-red water and globs of yellow animal fat gush from Dunedin s sewers into the Green Island wastewater treatment plant. The visceral, greasy liquid will clog the filters and coat the ultraviolet lights used to disinfect the effluent. They ll have to be scrubbed clean, yet again.
Talleys, Ernest Adams and Yoplait are among hundreds of manufacturers and brands dumping contaminants into New Zealand's drains and getting away with it.
Talleys, Ernest Adams and Yoplait are among hundreds of manufacturers and brands dumping contaminants into New Zealand s drains and getting away with it, RNZ has revealed today.
Some are bakeries, supermarkets and takeaway shops dumping the contents of their dirty grease traps. But some of New Zealand s biggest manufacturers and brands are also discharging contaminants - many of them dangerous - and most have breached the conditions of their consents multiple times.
Data obtained from 68 city and district councils paints a grim picture of compliance, showing at least 267 companies have breached their conditions.
RNZ approached every company named in the story for comment. You can read the full statements of those who responded here.
Jessica Schulberg
January 14, 2021, 8:43 PM
Corey Johnson, 52, had been diagnosed with COVID-19 last month. (Photo: Provided by counsel for Corey Johnson)
The Trump administration executed 52-year-old Corey Johnson on Thursday night, despite a Supreme Court ruling that executing people with intellectual disabilities like his violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The government killed Johnson with a lethal injection of pentobarbital, a process that often causes pulmonary edema, a condition in which fluid enters the lungs while the person is still conscious and creates a painful sensation similar to suffocating or drowning. At the time of his execution, Johnson was still experiencing symptoms from his COVID-19 diagnosis last month. Medical experts have warned that receiving an overdose of pentobarbital would likely be even more painful for individuals recovering from COVID-19 because the virus often damages the lungs.