Page 3258 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 18 August 2009
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which I think really did fail to properly acknowledge the quite comprehensive and detailed policies that the government already has and the work and the funding it has committed to progress those into the future.
First, let me turn to the issue of the ACT no waste strategy. That strategy was adopted in 1996, with a target of no waste by 2010. Since the inception of the policy, there have been significant increases in the annual levels of total resource recovery. Canberrans are very good recyclers in the home environment, with more than 95 per cent of Canberrans involved in the practice and 40,000 tonnes of recyclable material being saved from landfill each year.
Overall, the no waste by 2010 policy has achieved an improvement in recycling rates in the ACT, from 42 per cent in 1996 to 74 per cent last year. While these recycling trends are good—indeed, they are the best in the country—the amount of waste to landfill did increase slightly between 2006-07 and 2007-08. And this is largely a factor of the relative affluence of the ACT and the levels of consumption that go with that relative affluence. Indeed, this is a factor that has been recognised as significant in studies on this issue, both on waste and on greenhouse gas emissions.
With the significant progress in reducing domestic waste to landfill and in resource recovery from the construction and demolition waste sectors, the greatest gains in the future are likely to be made in the commercial and industrial sector. And this is where the ACT government is focusing its efforts.
Let me look at these sectors. The commercial sector in the ACT includes retailers, businesses, offices and restaurants. Reducing waste to landfill from the commercial sector is a priority because this sector generates over half of all waste to landfill, that is, 110,000 tonnes in 2007-08; significant food waste; and specific waste items such as electronic waste, computers, televisions and so on.
For that reason, the ACT government allocated $483,000 in the most recent budget for a commercial waste scheme to address the issue of commercial waste and to develop a future waste scheme to replace the current ACT waste strategy, no waste by 2010. So the government is responding by developing a new policy framework to move forward and certainly not the picture portrayed by Ms Bresnan.
Businesses are responsible for arranging their own waste and recycling services through commercial providers. The funding provided in the budget will enable the government to work collaboratively with businesses and the waste recycling industry to investigate why businesses are not recycling more, as well as to clarify the obstacles to increasing the recovery of recycling from the commercial waste stream.
To this end, just last week I was very pleased to launch the ACT BusinessSmart and OfficeSmart programs to meet the specific needs of businesses and offices across the territory and region in relation to commercial recycling. The BusinessSmart and OfficeSmart programs have also been deployed in the Legislative Assembly. Indeed, you can see that the bins in the chamber have been tagged with the logos of that scheme. I thank the Assembly and, in particular, the Speaker for his support for the Assembly becoming a member of and a participant in this ACT government scheme.
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