Page 2156 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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Not only is it important to have a sensible panel disposal process to reduce waste and reduce pressure on landfill; if done well, it is also an economic opportunity. A report by the International Energy Agency in 2016 found that recoverable materials from photovoltaic panel waste had a potential value of nearly $US15 billion by 2050.
According to the work done by companies such as GreenMatch, which operates in the renewable energy and other environmentally sustainable industries space, a supplier of end-of-life recycling could help finance future growth of the solar power industry, with 96 per cent of the materials able to be re-used for producing new solar panels. This not only reduces waste to landfill but also can create employment. I would like to think that the ACT government has already started to look at such schemes as part of emerging industries contemplated in the next generation energy storage narrative.
The reality is that we are building a potential mountain of waste, even here in the ACT, with no established stewardship or recycling process. Admittedly, with the life cycle of panels being anywhere from 20 to 30 years, we still have time to get something established, but this government does not have a strong track record of timely infrastructure delivery. We only have to see the overcrowded schools, the hospital waiting lists, failing hospital switchboards, the slow reaction to building new roads and the snail-like processes in planning to know that this government is failing to plan for the future.
Overseas evidence suggests that if recycling processes were not put in place, there would be 60 million tonnes of photovoltaic panels waste lying in landfills by 2050. By 2017 Europe had already created 43,500 tonnes of PV waste. Since all PV cells contain a certain amount of toxic substances, that would reduce solar panels to a very non-sustainable energy source.
There is time for the ACT to get organised and seek out opportunities for a PV recycling industry. Therefore, my motion today calls on the government to undertake studies into how solar panels and batteries are disposed of in countries where solar is a major source of renewable energy, to develop a territory-wide plan for the safe disposal of both panels and batteries that does not involve additional costs on households and businesses or add to the increasing landfill problem in the ACT, and to report back to the Assembly by the last sitting week of November on what safe disposal options will be made available and when such arrangements will be in place.
I commend my motion to the Assembly.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Roads) (4.55): I thank Ms Lawder for bringing forward this motion today. I am very delighted to see a member of the Canberra Liberals who is interested in recycling. I mean the good type of recycling, about waste recovery, not the recycling that the Canberra Liberals are fond of when they announce Labor policies as their own.
Not all of Ms Lawder’s colleagues are as passionate about the environment and waste reduction as she appears to be today. We know that Mr Wall has his doubts about the
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