Reopening of New, Improved Supershed

Saturday 29 November 2003

Good morning. It's great to be here to help pronounce the Supershed is open and back in good shape. I know I will not be nearly as pleased as the staff here who have had months of hauling stuff around to keep the place going.

First up, I would like to thank you for your dedication and hopefully not blood, but maybe a good deal of sweat and tears in keeping things humming along.

There is quite a bit of debate going on in Christchurch at present about how we deal with what society throws away. It's good this debate is running and maybe worth it today just taking the time to look at the gains we have already made.

Not so long ago recycling was seen as just for hippies and cranks. It was a fringe idea. Within the last decade it has become utterly mainstream.

Each week between 70 and 80 per cent of Christchurch residents show their active support for recycling by filling and putting out those green bins. We now get told off because we are not doing enough fast enough to increase the range of stuff that can be recycled.

We have got to this great point through a combination of education, changing opinion and taking the time to carry the people along with us. It has been a case of evolution, not revolution.

The Supershed plays a unique and valuable part in this process of evolution. It is where many of us come to play and pick up and take home what to someone else was either rubbish, or surplus to requirements.

My speechwriter who grew up in Shortland Street close to here says that for someone who can remember the old original dump out here it is a wonderful reminder of the amazing stuff that people choose to throw out.

The Supershed gives us all a chance to try out our imagination and eye in finding treasures that we can actively recycle into new uses. It challenges us all to take a fresh look at what and how we define as rubbish. It is, in some ways, the shop window for the City Council of an example of how what we use to discard can now be instead used again.

Going to back to what I was saying about one of my people growing up here years ago and remembering the old dump. Perhaps our challenge here today before the kapa haka group from Aranui performs is in thinking about the future we want to leave these, our children. These children will grow up recalling the Supershed, not the dump.

Wouldn't it be great if their children grow to have no memory of a throwaway society at all. That's a huge challenge I think we should all be willing to try to meet. Christchurch City is booming. We draw rich immigrants and new skills from around the world. They come because of our natural wealth and beauty. We need to both preserve and enhance that natural taonga for both the future and the present.

The Supershed then is a signpost to a better, cleaner future for us all. I am delighted again declare it officially open.