Bicycles, Brunch and BHP
By Tim E. Stewart
NEWCASTLE -- University of Newcastle students and interested public donned gas masks and took to their bicycles for a ride and rally on Sunday September 15.
Members of the Hunter Valley Rainforest Action Group, Resistance, Environmental Youth Alliance and the campus Wilderness and Green Society rode nose in the air for an event dubbed “Bicycles, Brunch and BHP”.
The aim of the event, organised by the University of Newcastle SRC environment officer, was to highlight the fact that environmental issues are important in urban Australia.
Most participants were not aware of the size and extent of heavy industry at Kooragang Island -- the Altona of Newcastle. Bicycles, Brunch and BHP was a means of encouraging Novocastrians to become more aware of big business operations.
As well as smelling the rear of BHP, the BBB brigade examined the Boral woodchip loader at Kooragang Island. There was an immediate realisation that woodchips were being exported to Japan and these same woodchips were being imported back as value-added “one life” products such as toilet paper, cardboard and writing paper.
With BHP as an appropriate backdrop, the brigaders were treated to a fruit, pancake and burger brunch. Members of HVRAG, WAGS, and EYA then discussed future actions to encourage participation in pushing for a cleaner industry and alternatives to woodchipping native forests.
