Page 5855 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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festival last weekend, to see the amount of rubbish that has been allowed to flow into the lake in that area. I am referring, of course, to McDonald's. They have a quite considerable amount of packaging and wrapping which unfortunately finds its way into our water system. I think we have to speak rather severely to that organisation, because they claim to be environmentally aware. We have to ask them what they are proposing to do to assist in solving the problems associated with that litter going into our waterways.
Members may recall a recent report on the amount of material that was picked up by people during the clean-up campaign. Some members in this Assembly participated in that, as I did. We provided information on the sort of rubbish that was being located.
Mrs Nolan: Did you see the rubbish report?
MR JENSEN: Yes, that is what I was referring to, Mrs Nolan. Most of the material finding its way into our environment is related to the packaging industry, particularly plastics. That is something that we have to look at very carefully. I am pleased to see that there is provision for pollution abatement notices, as opposed to the old court system. I think this is a good way to move. But we also have to encourage people to be a little more aware of their environment, particularly builders and residents in the urban areas.
I hope that we make all officers who are associated with the building industry in the ACT aware of the problems of water pollution so that they can alert those responsible for actually issuing the notices that there is a problem. That is something that I sought to have implemented while I was assisting Mr Kaine in that area. I wanted officers from the various sections of the department to be available to advise the EPS section that there was a problem, rather than people just saying, "Well, that is somebody else's problem and I need not do anything about it".
The EPS section is a hardworking group of people. There are not many of them, and I think they need as much support as possible from other elements within the various sections involved, particularly members of the building industry developing new areas in the ACT.
I would encourage the Minister to take that suggestion on board, if he has not already done so, as a way of providing more enforcement and creating greater awareness of some of the problems. The amount of sediment that goes into our water system from developing urban areas is, if my figures are correct, something like three times the amount that goes into the system from established urban areas. It is important to solve the problems at the beginning.
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