Page 766 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 5 April 2022
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minister recently, in a question on notice, about the volume of nappies and sanitary products going to landfill. He said that no such data was collected, which was very disappointing, whereas Ms Cheyne has just talked about how many nappies go to the waste collection centres.
In my electorate of Brindabella there is a small local business called B Eco Family. It used to be called Bellelis. In fact, the owner of that business, Olga, was named the Canberra Women in Business Businesswoman of the Year last year. They sell eco-friendly products for babies and parents, such as cloth reusable nappies. These are quite the little fashion accessory for little ones, as well as being environmentally conscious, which is why I introduced some words about reusable nappies into my motion.
As I think we have all said at some point, Canberrans are natural recyclers. They believe in recycling. They are generally good at recycling. They have a commitment to recycling. But this particular motion is not about recycling. I have had many overwhelmingly positive comments about FOGO—food organics and garden organics. Let us not forget that this government signed the contract for green bins that specifically excluded food waste from the bins. It could have been done in one go.
Leaving that aside, this motion is not about FOGO. The feedback has been very positive. It is very welcome. It is about waste collection and ensuring that we genuinely take these concerns on board before FOGO is rolled out across the whole of the ACT. I believe there is strong evidence that a weekly waste collection is still required. We will see the proof of that when it is rolled out across the ACT, and whether the comments that have come from the pilot are genuinely taken into account.
We genuinely believe that there is the opportunity to improve this scheme before it is rolled out Canberra-wide, and that was the objective of my motion today. We have heard concerns from some members about illegal dumping, about littering, about contamination of the different waste bins because people may run out of space in their normal waste bin. That is not what we want. That is the last thing we want, when we are having such a great rate of non-contamination in the pilot.
Equally, I am sure that we do not want to put another burden on our families here in the ACT. With respect to larger families—and some members in this place have larger families—we do not want to put a burden on them. We do not want to put another burden on older Canberrans. And we do not want to put another burden on families with a disabled person or a disabled child—someone with disability in their own family.
Mr Cain read out some comments from someone with a child with disability. They got a message back from the directorate suggesting that they clean out their smelly bin with bicarb of soda. How condescending. How out of touch with a family with a child with disability. This family love their child, and they will look after their child for the rest of its life. How do you think they felt when they got that message back from the directorate? “Hose out your bin and put a bit of bicarb of soda in it.”
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