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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 550 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

They claim that the ACT has no hazardous waste manifest system. The fact of the matter is that the ACT currently participates on a voluntary basis in the manifest system used in New South Wales. As the only disposal system in the ACT for such waste through incineration, the Mitchell incinerator is expected to, and does, comply with rigorous assessments. There is, to all intents and purposes, a manifest system at work in the ACT. Through the National Environment Protection Council process, a uniform national manifest system is being developed which will be incorporated into the ACT's new environment protection legislation when it comes forward.

Totalcare receives and destroys waste from local and interstate sources, mostly from surrounding New South Wales. It is mostly clinical and related wastes, particularly from our own hospital. It should be noted that large quantities of ACT wastes are sent interstate for recycling or disposal where facilities do not exist in the ACT. Over a 20-month period, 1,100 tonnes of interstate waste was burnt in our incinerator at Mitchell. A very small proportion of that was Delan and pesticide containers.

What the Conservation Council says about Delan is, first of all, that its incineration is totally against all accepted safe practices. They say that some 3,000 kilograms of pesticide containers were burnt in late 1995. They say that Delan gives off cyanide, sulphur dioxides and nitrogen oxides. They go on to imply that cyanide is affecting areas surrounding the incinerator at Mitchell. A lot of people, including my constituents and Mr Hird's, live close to that incinerator, and I take very seriously a suggestion that they might in any way be threatened by cyanide coming from the incinerator.

Mr Speaker, I will just explain to the Assembly that the Totalcare incinerator is designed to operate at a temperature of 1,100 degrees Celsius - a bit like the Assembly at some times. The incineration of Delan at such a high temperature gives off not cyanide but carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen. The Conservation Council claim was based on a publication which they annexed to their press release - an extract from a document called "Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials" - and they point out that cyanide is a product of the burning of Delan. What they do not mention, however, is that this publication refers to the burning of those sorts of materials by thermal decomposition. Thermal decomposition is baking in a slow oven to destroy certain chemicals. It is obvious to any of us that an incinerator burning at 1,100 degrees Celsius is not a slow oven. Moreover, although the release of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen sounds very serious, in fact these are chemicals that are quite common in our air already. The ACT has recorded very low levels of those chemicals in our atmosphere already.

Mr Speaker, the claim is also made that dioxins are not tested for at Mitchell. Again, that is not true. There is no evidence of dioxin emissions from the Totalcare incinerator, and testing has taken place, for example, throughout last year. Continuous dioxin monitoring does not occur in any Australian incinerators. The testing has not shown any levels of dioxin present from the incinerator at Mitchell. The Conservation Council suggests that clinical waste contains chlorine and that when that is burnt it can sometimes release dioxins. The fact of the matter is that the materials will do that if they are burnt at below 900 degrees Celsius. Our incinerator does not burn at below 900 degrees Celsius.

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