Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3851 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

To provide an independent opinion, consultants Sinclair Knight Merz, were engaged to conduct a review. Sinclair Knight Merz is a leading independent multi-disciplinary firm of consulting engineers, planners, scientists, economists, and project managers. Dr Ian Swane (CP Eng), who conducted the review, is the contaminated sites and waste management group manager, and is an accredited site auditor with the New South Wales and Victorian EPAs. The review was carried out with regard to the current environmental authorisation for the landfills, and the consultants were required to liaise with key stakeholders including Environment ACT, ACT Workcover, Totalcare Industries Ltd, CFMEU and the ACT Department of Health and Community Care.

The Assembly will be pleased to note that the report found no fundamental deficiencies in the management of landfill operations. However, there is room for improvement. The review found that the West Belconnen landfill is a generally well run facility that plays an important role in waste management in the ACT. The facility is achieving substantial compliance with its environmental authorisation issued by Environment ACT.

The review also considered OH&S concerns on the site. Data provided by ACT WorkCover indicate that a relatively high level of safety has been achieved and maintained by ACT Waste at the two landfill sites. Information on ACT Waste's workers compensation history shows that, between March 1996 and October 1999, the type and level of injuries reported by workers have been relatively low and consistent with other forms of earthmoving types of work. This OH&S data indicate no reported cases of injury caused by acute (ie., short-term) exposure to hazardous chemicals or dusts.

The Sinclair Knight Merz report also benchmarks best practice environmental management at Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne landfills. The report compares the current procedures at ACT landfills with those benchmarked at other landfills, and makes a series of recommendations to improve the procedures at ACT landfills. The best practice benchmarking and some of the resulting recommendations need to be considered in the local context. The report indicates that the much lower amount of special, chemical and industrial waste received at ACT landfills means that the potential environmental impacts are lower compared with landfills in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

To achieve best practice environmental management, relevant to this region, we will need to use a more flexible approach to screening waste received at ACT landfills. Our policies should continue our waste minimisation effort to direct waste streams to recycling; detect large volumes of incorrectly classified waste; detect incorrectly classified waste generated outside the ACT; use handling methods that protect the health of landfill workers and the public using the landfill; and encourage residents of the ACT to properly manage and dispose of waste.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .