New Zealanders Protest Government With “Poo Emoji”

Photo Credit: New Zealand Herald

New Zealanders are really getting into the new emojis. Using the “poo emoji” (a pile of smiling poop), they are protesting their government’s handling of the environment.

Protesters from the Action Station group launched 50 inflatable poo emojis onto Lake Ohakuri on the Waikato River the New Zealand Herald reports. The inflatable “poos” were released near to where the ruling National Party was holding a conference. The poo emojis were meant to bring attention to the Action Station’s opinion that the new rules would mean more contaminants in freshwater, not fewer.

The Action Station group claims that the proposed new standards would not improve water quality. They believe that they will instead result in “more poo and wee in the water” – hence the emoji-based protest. “We decided to have some fun with the emojis to illustrate our point, but this is not a light-hearted issue,” campaigner Laura O’Connell-Rapira told the paper.

The proposed new standards, announced in February, are part of what environment minister Nick Smith says is an ambitious plan to make 90% of New Zealand’s rivers swimmable by 2040, the Stuff.co.nz website says. However, environmentalists say the government has “shifted the goalposts” by basing water cleanliness on the amount of E.coli contamination, meaning that a “clean” river could still contain dangerous quantities of faecal matter containing other harmful bacteria.

This isn’t the first time environmentalists in New Zealand have made headlines. Instead of actually doing something about their “contaminated rivers,” the New Zealand environmentalists are begging their government to do it for them. Apparently, they have never heard the phrase “be the change.” Most are content with making someone else do the work, and protests are easier than actually working to clean the water. Nonetheless, in March, one campaigner publicly challenged environment minister Nick Smith to a boxing match next to a polluted water hole which is now classed as suitable for swimming under the new measures. The loser would have had to “frolic in the water hole for no less than five minutes,” according to the challenge; which was published in a newspaper advertisement.

The Action Station group has decided to sell their inflatable poo emojis, but the money will probably just go to more begging.  If this group had any intention of actually doing the work needed to clean up the waterways, they would probably get a little more respect.  Begging the government in the form of a protest is easy.  And these people certainly can talk the talk, they just can’t walk the walk.  But the floating poo emjois are a least a humorous distraction from their hypocrisy.