Page 3397 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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I will provide a short insight into how the government continues to explore ways to avoid, reduce and reuse waste in the ACT. Our waste management strategy from 2011-25 articulates this commitment. It is clearly focused on generating less waste in the ACT and working towards full resource recovery. The strategy also outlines how we will work towards ensuring that our city remains a clean environment and a carbon neutral waste sector. I have been working closely with both Ministers Gentleman and Rattenbury on this.
The strategy outlines our waste management targets of achieving up to 60 per cent of waste being diverted from landfill by 2025 and a carbon neutral waste sector by 2020. These are among the most ambitious in the country. The recently completed ACT waste feasibility study examined options to help us achieve those targets. The study has presented a pathway to lift our resource recovery rate from the current levels of around 70 per cent to 87 per cent. Its recommendations are also designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting organics—that is both garden and food waste—from landfill.
The study included a number of options: promoting better waste management behaviour within our own community; including food waste collection in the popular green bins kerbside service; supporting local industry to find more ways to produce and use recycled products; and exploring the conversion of residual waste to energy.
Consultation on the study’s road map concluded in July. Initial community feedback has been very positive and a consultation report is being prepared. The study recommendations are consistent with the waste hierarchy, placing waste avoidance ahead of technical recycling solutions. While the ACT landfills employ best practice management, landfill should only be a destination for waste that cannot be recovered and recycled. That is our long-term objective.
I will now specifically address the issue of reducing the use of single-use plastic. As others have noted, plastics are estimated to be a very small amount by weight of the approximately 250,000 tonnes of waste going to landfill in the ACT each year. However, as we know, plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade, so we need to lead the way in encouraging avoidance of all plastic waste where possible.
Most rigid plastics can be recycled in our yellow-lid bins at home or out in the community. Soft or film-plastics, however, cannot currently be put through our recycling system in the ACT. While the major supermarkets are collecting soft plastics, including plastic bags which they recycle at commercial recycling facilities, we must all play a role in mindfully and deliberately reducing the amount of single-use plastic we purchase, use and throw away.
The ACT government is looking into how its own soft plastics can be recycled. Transport Canberra and City Services recently sent a bail of soft plastics generated by Capital Linen Services to Victoria for processing. In return, the directorate purchased a new park bench made from soft plastic for the staff to use. While this is a small first step, TCCS has since formed an internal soft plastics working group which is exploring opportunities to see soft plastics generated by ACT government directorates recycled.
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