Page 653 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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At present we have an efficient system. Everyone agreed that our present collection methods are economical. In my minority report I recommend that we retain this system for the time being, until there is a further opportunity to review the path that this Assembly wants to go down. I believe that when my colleagues on the committee and others in this Assembly start to talk about it we will not go down that path of big bins. I understand that it was a difficult situation for my colleagues to come into it without all that background.
Let me make one comment about tips about which there have been such frequent comments. I am taken by the description of some of the conservation groups, the ACT Recycling Campaign in particular, of tips. They say that they are not tips - and I believe them - they are recycling centres, and that is the way we need to regard them.
Mr Humphries: With the charging of fees we will have to recycle.
MR WOOD: Maybe in the end. At this stage I do not recommend charging a fee. Let us review that in the future. At the moment two-thirds of all the waste going to the tips, the recycling centres, is commercial or industrial. I think that is something we need to look at, but for the householder, certainly at this stage, let us not introduce a charge.
Dr Kinloch said it is part of our Canberra experience to go to a tip on Sunday. I went to the tip twice last Sunday. I did not particularly want to go, and I avoid it as much as I possibly can. It is only when I am considerably nagged at home that I go out and do that chore. I get out as quickly as I can.
Let me emphasise the importance of this matter. We cannot have big bins. If we want efficient waste collection, that is what we would get with big bins. Waste would be collected and thrown into that expensive landfill. But we want recycling. That is what the Assembly and the people of Canberra want. If we are to have recycling, we have to have a smaller capacity bin.
I want to make one final comment about the need to put a deposit on glass beverage containers - I suppose, most frequently, the stubby. In the public behaviour committee we recommended that course of action, and there is a slightly weaker recommendation in this report. I think it is of great importance that we should put a deposit on those containers. It works well in South Australia and, as I have researched the subject, as I have spoken to people here and in South Australia, it can work in this Territory. The argument that the ACT is an island and has particular problems, I believe, is not valid. We can impose a deposit. It would play a major role in reducing the flow of rubbish and the littering that occurs around this city.
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