Page 4719 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (4.49): Canberrans produced approximately 75,000 tonnes of household rubbish last year. That is about 1½ times as heavy as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. That impact weighs heavily on the environment, and in the words of Jack Johnson:
We’ve got to learn to
Reduce, re-use, recycle …
And if the first two r’s don’t work out
And if you’ve got to make some trash
Don’t throw it out
Recycle …
We are doing pretty well on that front; Canberrans are recycling over 70 per cent of their waste. But there is room for improvement. It is important that the government continues to support new initiatives to further reduce the amount of rubbish ending up in landfill and littering our streets. The container deposit scheme will encourage everyone to do their bit to reduce litter and increase recycling.
The ACT’s waste management system is integral to keeping Canberra looking beautiful and reducing our environmental impact. Litter not only is unsightly on our streets and in our waterways but also contributes to our carbon footprint. Waste accounted for 2.6 per cent of Canberra’s carbon emissions in 2015-16, and that figure is increasing. Diverting as much waste as possible from landfill to be recycled helps reduce our carbon emissions. It is a double win—not only is less waste going to landfill but we can make quality new materials and products without having to extract, refine and process as much raw material from our environment. The waste sector is incredibly innovative in transforming household waste into worthwhile products. We can all do our part to recycle as much as we can and to help make Canberra a more sustainable city.
The ACT government is introducing a container deposit scheme to reward the community for avoiding littering and increasing recycling. According to the 2015-16 national litter index, beverage containers account for about 25 per cent of the ACT’s litter, and that is over 140 litres of beverage containers contaminating our waterways, parks and roadsides. Under this bill the ACT container deposit scheme will require suppliers of beverages sold in certain eligible containers to have them licensed by the ACT government. Those containers will be required to display a CDS symbol.
From early 2018 beverage containers with the CDS symbol will be able to be returned to designated drop-off points for a 10c refund. It keeps the containers out of the litter stream and puts a bit of extra cash back in the pockets of consumers. Beverage containers deposited at a drop-off point will go to the materials recovery facility at Hume to be sorted, bundled and sold for recycling.
The first state to implement a similar scheme was South Australia, back in 1977. The South Australian scheme has proved to be very successful in recovering and recycling beverage containers. Currently, their overall return rate of containers is 79.9 per cent,
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video