Page 268 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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If we look at household waste, green bins account for 25 per cent of the waste sent to landfill, or 61,000 tonnes. If we include Queanbeyan, it would be 69,000 tonnes. Forty to 50 per cent of that, as I said, is organic and each of us spends an average of $1,475 per year on unused items, mostly food, which, according to ACTPLA’s sustainable futures study, makes us one of the most wasteful jurisdictions in Australia. Of the household waste, 10 to 20 per cent of that is recyclables and 20 to 30 per cent of that is low-value material. Commercial waste saw 103,000 tonnes sent to landfill in 2009-10; 30 to 40 per cent of that was recyclable and 10 to 20 per cent of that was organic.
The government’s waste strategy, unfortunately, is based on an increase in waste—an increase per capita, not just an increase due to increased population. The government commissioned Hyder Consultancy to produce a report entitled Assessment of waste infrastructure and services options for the ACT, which was delivered in December 2011, at the same time that the government released its final waste strategy. It was publicly released at that time; I assume it was delivered to the government in advance of that.
According to the Hyder report, an education program could reduce the overall level of waste to landfill from the household stream by up to 23 per cent by food waste avoidance alone, and this figure could be enhanced by increasing recycling rates and home composting. I would like to point out that the way the figure was portrayed in the motion text at (1)(f) is confusing and does not quite give enough credit to the potential waste to landfill savings of the education program proposal.
Education, according to the Hyder report, is the most cost-effective solution and the best solution environmentally, looking ahead to 2021. It is not quite the same as looking ahead to 2023, but that is probably because the government assumed that there would be no more improvements due to the education program after the first four years, which seems to be a very unambitious target.
Despite the Hyder report, the government’s waste management strategy is based on a new residual waste materials recovery facility, also known as a dirty MRF. A dirty MRF will do nothing to reduce waste volumes. It will, in fact, perpetuate the flow of toxic and hazardous waste to landfill. This, in combination, with not providing Canberra residents with a safe way to dispose of household fluorescent bulbs and batteries, means that the organic waste collected from a dirty MRF cannot be used for high quality compost and has little market value due to the glass shards and toxic material mixed in with the organic matter. Thus the end product cannot be used for agriculture as no farmer wants to put broken glass into their soil. The only use of this product is mine-site rehabilitation and plantations. They are low value markets and are not a good justification for investing in expensive infrastructure.
The decision that the government is planning to make regarding a dirty MRF will lock in a long-term strategy for the community. It will cost tens of millions of dollars and almost certainly will involve long-term contracts with waste operators. I also note that a new contract for ACT waste vehicles is due to be negotiated in the middle of this year and it is important that that does not lock us into the wrong solution.
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