Page 528 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 June 1989
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pelletising sewerage ash so that perhaps it can be used as agricultural soil conditioner and that type of fertiliser.
We also need to look at container deposits. I remember working in country South Australia when deposits were introduced on cans. In the first three months of that legislation providing for a 5c deposit on cans, the cans basically disappeared from the roads. Later on somehow or another somebody got around the law and introduced some form of small bottle that was used for beer without a deposit, and they reappeared on the roads. So I think it is another area that we will have to look at. I understand from a report from Senator Button's office that there has actually been a strong recommendation against that, so we will have to look very carefully at why the recommendation came about and what we need to do about that.
Most of this concerns education, like all parts of environmental concerns. The more we educate people, the more chance we have got of people looking after our environment, whether it is recycling or the sort of discussion we had yesterday about energy conservation. I draw your attention to the possibility of restricting plastic bags used in supermarkets, and I wonder how many of us here take our own plastic bags to the supermarket or try to find ways to reduce that form of waste.
Let me emphasise once again that we are talking mostly about education and getting people to think about the environment. If I can just give one example about the environment and education, I would like to draw attention to the fact that for as long as I can remember, perhaps the last 10 or 12 years, I have been washing my dishes with soap rather than detergent. You get a little container and you shake it away in the sink and the soap is adequate to wash the dishes. This in turn saves the detergent collecting. I support this motion, and members of the Rally will indeed continue the discussion on it.
MR DUBY (11.01): If there is one thing yesterday's debate on energy conservation showed us, it is that there are a lot of born-again conservators in this house. I think there were 12 speeches yesterday about the very complicated issue of wood burning fires. Like the other parties in this house, we also support this motion that these matters be referred to the committee and looked into. This Assembly has the opportunity to create in Canberra a model city for resource conservation. We are very highly centralised, a small area, and if anyone can do it, we should be able to do it here.
There can be no argument about the need for an increase in resource recovery from waste if we are going to have a clean environment and sustainable living into the future. The only argument can be about the best way of getting there, and I think this inquiry will look at those matters and look at them quite well.
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