Page 3391 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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Minister for Mental Health) (10.52): I certainly support Ms Orr’s motion about reducing plastic waste. This is a very important topic. Single-use plastic comes at a high cost to the community and the environment. There are viable alternatives that provide better outcomes. Ms Orr has given a few examples that she has been able to encourage in her own sphere of influence. Certainly, it highlights the fact that there is a responsibility to address this significant problem at a number of levels: individually, collectively and as a government.
There is definitely a role for government to play. The ACT ban on single-use plastic shopping bags is but one example of this. Introduced in November 2011, it was a great first step in reducing plastic waste in the ACT. The 2014 review of the ban found that it had reduced plastic bag waste to landfill by about one-third and reduced the number of lightweight plastic bags found as litter in streets and waterways in the ACT.
We now see other states and territories implementing similar bans and national supermarket chains voluntarily implementing an end to free single-use plastic shopping bags. While this is great progress, there is still much more we can do. I am interested that we have seen moves by major supermarket chains to do this. In part they have done it because of a failure by governments in other jurisdictions to act, to take that leadership role and to address what, up until this point, has been a market failure. I think that is a poor reflection on some of those governments, given the general levels of community support for this.
I am certainly looking forward to being able to release the “unfantastic plastic” review of our ACT ban that I commissioned late last year from the Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. I asked the office to do that because I wanted to ensure that it was working as well as possible and to have it reviewed independently. All the commissioner’s reports come to the Assembly and the Assembly will have access to that information.
The government will certainly examine with interest the recommendations arising from that review. I have no doubt that there will be opportunities for the ACT to improve the effectiveness of this regulatory measure. I certainly support the continued improvement of our efforts. That will be a discussion for this place to have, and for the government to have, once that report is available.
Waste avoidance certainly needs to be our highest priority for reducing waste, followed by re-use and then by recycling as we implement the waste feasibility study road map. That is a very important point to make because there is a large amount of natural resource and energy that goes into producing plastics.
Plastics have obviously been one of the great revolutions of modern society in terms of the convenience and the adaptability they provide. It is only now that we are getting that greater and deeper understanding of the true impact that plastics are having on our planet. Avoidance is the most effective strategy, because it avoids that use of natural resources in the first place to produce those plastics. But then the re-use and recycling are important follow-up steps to make sure that when that plastic is produced we get maximum value out of it.
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