Monday, December 15, 2008

Smells like unemployment

You might think spinning chicken shit into money was a laudable goal, but you'd be wrong there. Over 160 people will be losing their jobs in Morrinsville soon due to the smell of mushroom food. NZ Mushrooms, which uses the compost to grow its crop, has been ordered to close:
[Matamata-Piako Mayor Hugh] Vercoe said a composting site about a kilometre out of town was the root of the complaints, as opposed to the long-established growing operation in town. He said the composting site had been where it is for longer than some of the residents on lifestyle properties nearby.
The forced closure comes over a year since an Environment Court precedent that ruled that olfactory pollution is bad. The simpler solution by far would have been to rule against lifestyle properties being owned by townies with delicate noses instead.