Page 3526 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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out the gold award with their waste minimisation efforts during the further development of Brindabella Business Park. ACT Skip Hire received the silver award and the National Folk Festival received the bronze.
I am delighted to inform members that the 2006 no waste awards were again hotly contested, with nominations submitted from across Canberra’s business, educational and academic communities, as well as both territory and federal departments. Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table a list of those awards.
Leave granted.
MR HARGREAVES: I table the following paper:
NoWaste award winners 2006.
While it is difficult to mention all the award winners here today, I would like to highlight the achievements of just a few. The Gordon Early Childhood Centre was highly commended in the no waste award for leadership in the community group and association category for effectively implementing actions to minimise the generation of waste within the organisation and raising awareness amongst our community’s youngest members.
Capital Chilled Foods in the business category achieved a 60 per cent reduction in overall waste generation, recovering or recycling 99 per cent of its remaining waste. Capital Chilled Foods is a strong example of a business that has implemented actions deemed too hard or costly for other businesses and gained a financial benefit from doing so. Hawker primary school, the first school accredited under the ACT government’s waste wise schools program, achieved a 50 per cent reduction in the amount of school waste.
Mr Speaker, you will be pleased to learn that the ACT Legislative Assembly got a highly commended for achieving a 50 per cent reduction of waste to landfill and a doubling of the collection of recyclables.
The diversity of the organisations that have received awards is a reflection that waste minimisation is both the responsibility of, and can be successfully achieved by, all sectors of the community. This year the award applications have been even more competitive and it is significant that not only are all of the submissions showing true leadership in waste management, but that many are also moving towards overall sustainable practices.
The ACT was the first government in the world to set a no waste target and our no waste strategy has put us in a strong leadership position. This, combined with a strong community effort, has led to more than 75 per cent of our waste being recovered or recycled, further positioning us to be international leaders in waste minimisation.
However, despite our best efforts, total waste generation continues to increase each year. This is for a number of reasons, not the least being that the boom times that the government has created is causing growth in the city and made us richer. However, as we become richer, we consume more and there is more rubbish to dispose of.
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