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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3753 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

Recent achievements of the no waste strategy include the establishment and operation of the Mitchell Resource Management Centre and the small vehicle transfer station at Mugga Lane. These facilities provide the necessary infrastructure to allow maximum recovery of resources before disposal. In conjunction with the establishment of the Mitchell centre, Belconnen was closed to general waste disposal. This continues the ongoing rationalisation of the territory's waste management infrastructure.

Education, of course, is a critical element of the strategy and a no waste education centre has been established as part of the improvements to the infrastructure at Mugga Lane. The education centre will provide the focus for waste minimisation and resource recovery education.

The centre itself is a prime example of what to do, as it and everything in it, other than the people, have been recycled. The education centre will become an important resource, especially for schools, and will provide access to informative displays, hands-on activities, brochures and leaflets, composting, worm farms and other helpful examples of reducing waste.

Waste wise schools is a new program that will take waste minimisation activities and education directly into our schools, to ensure that our children embrace the ethic that unwanted materials are a resource rather than a waste to be discarded.

Ms Dundas made some mention about what we do here in the Assembly. I understand from a conversation I had recently with someone in the building that a little more attention will be paid to that in the future.

Other initiatives that take waste minimisation education into the wider community include ecobusiness, a program that has been developed to assist the commercial sector to reduce waste generation as well as water and energy consumption. This program will be further developed. Indeed, I will be giving an address to and making further comments about this at a seminar held by the business community.

The ACT has the highest national participation in kerbside recycling services. Kerbside Recycling in the ACT recovers more than 28,000 tonnes of material a year. Improvements to this system will be implemented early in 2003 to make it easier to use and to provide for the recovery of a wider range of materials.

Modifications which will come with the new garbage contract will include removing the divider from the recycling bin and accepting a wider range of material in the yellow-lidded bins. To accommodate the changes to this system, a new materials recycling facility will be constructed in the planned resource recovery estate at Hume, adjacent to the Mugga Lane landfill. This estate will be further developed as the major site for future resource recovery and reprocessing activities.

One of the major issues facing future waste management is how best to deal with the 51,000 tonnes of domestically collected residual solid waste. The household organic material collection, or bio-bin, trial in Chifley in 2000-01 was one step in considering options for the appropriate management of this stream. I recall that Ms MacDonald was much interested in that, and she may have some other comments to make about it.

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