Page 1004 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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Waste disposal—recycling
(Question No 1483)
Dr Foskey asked the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, upon notice, on 28 February 2007:
(1) What plans are in place to make recycling facilities a permanent fixture in Civic and other town centres given the success of recycling at the Multicultural Festival;
(2) To where is e-waste such as computers and associated paraphernalia collected at ACT tips sent;
Mr Hargreaves: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:
(1) The Department of Territory and Municipal Services, in partnership with the Australian Packaging Stewardship Forum, is currently conducting a trial of public place recycling in Glebe Park. Once this trial has been completed an assessment will be done to determine the feasibility of extending recycling facilities to other public places.
(2) The ACT is the first and only jurisdiction to require residents to recycle computers. In the ACT, users pay to dispose of computers. The 2006-07 disposal fees are $15 per computer box and $20 per monitor. The fee covers most of the cost of recycling which is a complicated and expensive process.
Computers are currently sent to a company in Melbourne where they are dismantled manually. The company is able to recycle 90% of computer components. Each computer is dismantled, and the parts are sorted for recycling or reuse. Plastics and steel are sent to subsidiary companies within Australia for recycling. Monitors have the steel shield removed and the glass is sent to a company in Holland. Printed boards are exported to the USA for recycling.
The ACT Government along with other Governments and representatives from the IT industry in Australia are jointly looking at better ways to ensure that computers are recycled, such as takeback schemes where the recycling cost is built into the purchase price.
On the question of E-waste more generally, such as televisions and electronic organisers, the ACT Government encourages their reuse through recycling centres and initiatives such as Second Hand Sunday where reusable goods can be donated and collected for free. Second Hand Sunday this year fell on 1 April.
Water—extraction permits
(Question No 1484)
Dr Foskey asked the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, upon notice, on 28 February 2007:
(1) How many permits/licences have been issued to extract water from ACT lakes, rivers and ponds from July 2006 to date;
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