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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2225 ..

MS DUNDAS (10.56): I will be speaking to the motion. I seek leave to move the amendments circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

MS DUNDAS: I would now like to move the amendments to the motion circulated in my name:

Insert new paragraph 3A

"3A calls on the Government to recommence the Bio Bins trial in Chifley and to expand the Bio Bin trial to the north of Canberra in a suburb or suburbs that provide a demographic contrast to Chifley; and".

(2) Insert "across Canberra" after the word "waste" in paragraph (4).

Mr Speaker, if no waste by 2010 is to become a reality, then separation and recycling of green and food waste will have to be accomplished for the whole of Canberra. As most of us would be aware, slightly over half the weight of household waste currently going to landfill is recyclable food and kitchen waste.

As the average household size decreases, more people are living in medium and high-density housing which provides limited scope for on-site composting. This makes collection systems such as bio-bins incredibly important.

The Chifley bio-bin trial was received with great community enthusiasm. As Ms MacDonald has discussed, 90 per cent of households took part in the trial. The trial greatly increased community awareness about the high proportion of valuable compostable waste currently going to landfill. The trial also made many residents reconsider how they dealt with their other waste.

I am aware that a number of residents phoned the Department of Urban Services at the conclusion of the Chifley trial. They expressed their disappointment that the trial was ending and asked for more information about how to recycle their kitchen and food waste. Some also requested that the bio-bin system be continued on a voluntary basis. On a less positive note, the contamination of bio-bins by non-compostable rubbish increased dramatically when residents were notified that the trial was finishing. I believe this is because residents felt disappointment at the government not having sufficient commitment to the no waste strategy to turn the trial into a permanent collection program-hence people became cynical about the program.

We know that the bio-bin trial in Chifley was evaluated as it progressed and the results disseminated to participating households. It would appear then that the government had sufficient time to evaluate the success of the trial by the time the nine months of the trial had elapsed. This information would have enabled the department to modify the system, as required, to address identified problems. I wanted to see-and I believe the community wants to see-the continuation of bio-bins in Chifley and the introduction of such a system to other parts of Canberra.

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