The Panel with Mark Knoff-Thomas and Stephanie Rodgers (Part 2)

Our half-time topic today is all about enviornmental stories of the week including the Church of England's call to giev up plastic for Lent, the return of glass milk bottles, Germany trialling free public transport and the Caramilk craze may be dented by the fact it could have traces of plastic in it. We ask the panelists what they think. What the panelists Mark Knoff-Thomas and Stephanie Rodgers want to talk about. A Sumner man is regreting he oredered branches to be cut from a Norfolk pine tree near a building he owns, after people labelled it "eco-terrorism". The man says he had no idea the tree was protected and was only worried the bracnhes were too close to power lines. But there has been outrage over the trimming as the branches will now not grow back. The city council is considering whether there will be any action over the incident. We ask the panelists what they think. There are calls for more transparency for buyers purchasing cars from dealers, after multiple cases involving cars imported after being declared write-offs in Australia. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has confirmed it'll be reviewing regulations this year. We ask Craig Pomare, chief executive of the MTA, whether this is a common occurrence and what potential buyers can do to protect themselves. Auckland Council will spend $200,000 on a dumping hotline, hoping to catch those people who are dumping rubbish illegally on the side of city streets. Camera's will be set up in dumping hot spots and they'll be resources to find those responsible. It's not just an Auckland issue though, Rotorua Lakes District has been dealing with the same trash-dumping and it got so bad a local councillor offered up his own cash to catch the perpetrators. It seems to have worked. We speak to councillor Charles Sturt about how the campaign to end dumping has been going.