Page 4239 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I would like to comment on the production, in the first place, of the packaging that becomes the waste we are now seeking ways to address. I feel very strongly that we need a national approach to minimising the production of unnecessary packaging through the national packaging industry. My committee colleagues will be bored when I say this, I am sure, because I have said it every time we have had meetings on this issue; but the typical example is the choice of buying toothpaste in a tube or toothpaste in a tube within a box. Another example is buying a cake of soap, or a cake of soap wrapped one, two, three or four times when you purchase it. Those are just two very small examples of what I consider to be totally unnecessary packaging. Consideration must be given to the environmental and resource costs that go into not only producing them but also carting them, depositing them in stores, getting them home, and then disposing of them.
I think the whole of the packaging industry needs to have a look at itself. I know that that is very difficult in the commercial world in which we live, when the emphasis is far more on the importance of making something look attractive to the consumer; but I recall within the last three or four years the very favourable increase in consumer opinion about the production of more green cleaning materials and green soap powders and their availability in our supermarkets. The community started to go out and look for these products and, as a result, industry responded. I am of the view that, if the community had a similar approach to unnecessary packaging and waste and the minimisation we could achieve, the industry would be forced, through the consumer's voice, to respond accordingly. I would like to see a promotion of that sort of attitude and of the littering limits or expectations ANZECC has set. I suggest to our Executive and our ministry that the message about unnecessary packaging should be taken to the ANZECC forum, if it has not already been, and talked about very seriously.
Some people believe in the polluter pays system. I have a problem with that to some degree. I would hate to think that if you are a rich enough industry you can pay anything and pollute as you wish. By the same token, we all have a certain level of responsibility, whether we produce it, buy it, throw it away, store it, recycle it, reuse it or refill it. We have a responsibility within our general environmental areas of concern to take that issue seriously. I encourage any forum where it is possible to raise at the grassroots the issue of the production of the stuff in the first place.
I support Mr Moore's comments regarding the conduct of this inquiry. I must confess that at the beginning I did not know to what degree it would become interesting, but it certainly did. It opened my eyes to the potential we have in relation to waste minimisation, the environment, production costs, and so on. I would encourage all members to read this paper carefully. Those of us who are lucky enough to return next time and those who enter for the first time after the election I encourage to pick up this discussion paper and go with it and to look at the whole question further. Whether it eventually leads this place into recommending CDL or recommend something else is up to them, but I believe that it is worthy of further examination. I express my thanks to the secretariat and to the chair for a very interesting inquiry.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .