Way back I drew attention to the Green Party’s National infiltrator Nick Smith’s intention to collect 28000 old television sets.
Minister for the Environment Nick Smith today announced that The Great TV Take Back campaign netted 28,000 unwanted TVs for recycling – far exceeding the Government’s expectations.
Great. So what happens now and how much has this whole farce cost so far and what is it going to cost before its over with? Information starkly absent from Nick “Solyndra” Smith’s (as usual) glowing self serving press release.
While browsing through Smith’s press releases I came across this– (abridged)
Next steps in TV Takeback programme
As the TV Takeback programme comes to an end, the Government has been advised that one of the recyclers involved in the initiative is unlikely to be able to meet its contractual obligations.
“RCN E-Waste Ltd has indicated to me it is likely to default on its obligation to process all the televisions it has collected during the programme,” Ms Adams says.
“The Ministry for the Environment is currently investigating the implications of any default, but my priority is to ensure the televisions are dealt with appropriately, and I have asked for options in this regard.
“The Ministry is working with RCN E-Waste Ltd and others in the industry to ensure the remaining televisions are processed appropriately. This is likely to involve more cost, but I have asked my officials to look at options within the original budget for the programme.”
More than 220,000 televisions were collected for recycling during the programme. The Ministry is working with RCN E-Waste Ltd to determine exactly how many televisions are still to be processed. However, indications are this is a significant proportion of RCN E-Waste Ltd’s contracted obligations.
“TV Takeback has been a large-scale collection of e-waste with an emerging industry that has not operated at this scale before.
“It was an opportunity to divert a large quantity of waste that could have ended up in landfill and the programme was successful in motivating communities into taking action on waste.”
This is just one of the idiot schemes that Socialist Smith has haphazardly poured taxpayer money into. He’s been giving away money (like $20 million) on a series of other like “green” business initiatives. I haven’t seen any up to date reporting on what happened with these other investments but it wouldn’t surprise me one damn bit to see the same kind of result repeated more than a few times.
TrueblueNZ 
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Probably back ship it to some poor Nation so the locals can pull them apart.
What an absolute waste of time and money. Our Money.
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RCN E-waste has been in liquidation since 30 June 2014 and is the subject of an SFO investigation. Apparently they were given $4.5M by the government and are now in debt to the tune of $1.5M. It has one Director, Joe Capizzi, and the majority of shares are held by him, members of his family and companies he’s director of.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/sfo-investigating-old-tvs-gather-dust-6043047
http://www.insolvencywatch.co.nz/liquidation-notices/rcn-e-waste-limited/
RCN has been working with Community Recycling Networks (CRN – not to be confused with RCN). These CRN’s have started charging $40/TV for what was intended to be a free service which has led to dumping of sets. This is being blamed on insufficient funding by the govt of RCN. It all has the smell of a two week old kipper.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1405/S00349/tv-recycling-in-limbo-dumping-starts.htm
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Deeply sorry Mawm, your comment was in spam bin and only saw it there today. Must have been triggered by links.
Thank you anyway for directing me to those news items. Its appaling that Nick smith has apparently escaped unscathed for initiating this idiotic scheme that anyone with a brain would have recognised as unworkable right from the get go.
The TV’s should have been dumped in a landfill with all other waste. “Green” hysteria is having an enormously detrimental effect upon this country’s economic well being and then on top of that we have this kind of thing which could easily be mistaken for corruption and cronyism and gangsterism.
If there was any true accountability Smith would be gone over this. (I think Amy Adams was only left holding the can)
And I’ll bet its just the tip of the iceberg too.
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I drove a hard-garbage truck around an Australian metropolis years ago. I lined up five, perhaps siex old television sets in the compactor and said “Watch this kids”. As they all imploded at once the kids said “Cool” etc.
Contrast that image with the average apathetic parents facial if they ever found out about the cost of this rort. No-one will be held accountable. Business as usual~
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