Page 530 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 June 1989
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to the Belconnen market so that people have a convenient place to go to dump their recyclable products. I think we need to investigate ways of encouraging the establishment of recycling industries in the ACT. That might involve the concept of sunset funding for firms which are going to involve themselves in the recycling of products, and maybe low interest loans to assist these firms to get going and get over those first few months, or first few years even, of hardship that all firms undergo when they start.
There are a few other items that we feel need attention. There was mention of big bins. Once again we would like to see an integrated garbage disposal system introduced through the Territory, with the possibility of separate bins for glass, paper and other household products. Those paper bins do not have to be collected weekly. I believe quite efficient schemes operate in other cities where large bins for the use of paper only are provided at each household. People do not have to purchase them and the bins are filled and collected on perhaps even an eight-weekly or three-monthly turnaround. A large bin just gets filled, it is placed out once every two or three months and the collection is done on an area basis. This has been very efficient in other cities and I feel it could be looked at here. As Mr Moore said, there are 25,000 tonnes of glass generated and not recycled in the ACT per annum, and over 50,000 tonnes of paper. This is an absolutely enormous waste of resource.
Mr Humphries: Most of it is from here, I think.
MR DUBY: Yes, I think we might allocate a bit of that. With regard to the recycling of waste motor oil, who could disagree? It has to be done. I think we should look at placing collection tanks at all service stations right through the Territory. Surely it would not be any major problem for the proprietors of these establishments to have tanks there to collect waste oil, even if they were given some recompense for the time and trouble it took them to do so. I think it would be a step in the right direction.
Mr Moore also mentioned the concept of people taking their own plastic bags to the supermarkets. I would be opposed to that. There is nothing really wrong with plastic bags per se. It is just the faulty disposal of them that is the problem, and I would rather think that the bags were available there, but anyway, that is neither here nor there.
Another thing that I notice people are going to mention is the possibility of introducing fees at the tip. This is common, I believe, in other cities throughout Australia. I and my party, I am sure, would be opposed to the introduction of a fee at the local tip. The problem with that is that you wind up with people not choosing to go to the dump at all. They choose just to dump it at the side of the road or go for a run at night and throw their things all over the bushland and the parkland.
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