Page 2313 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007

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(d) a green waste mulching scheme;

(e) mandatory paper and cardboard recycling for commercial operations;

(f) the pick up and compost of commercial kitchen waste; and

(g) ending the use of skips and trash-packs for mixed waste and recycling dumping at landfill sites.

I put this motion on the notice paper because I think it is timely that we discuss the ACT no waste by 2010 strategy, do a small evaluation of its progress and suggest some ways forward. This strategy, which was introduced by the Liberal government in 1996, occurred after extensive consultation conducted by the Labor government which preceded it. As an interested citizen I was involved in those consultations, which I believe were good consultations and which totally endorsed the no waste by 2010 strategy, at that time an aspirational strategy.

People wanted to reduce their waste. The government took it up, took it beyond aspirations and made it a policy that we would work towards no waste by 2010. With 2010 just around the corner what do we see? Eleven years into the strategy, or 79 per cent of the way, it would be great to see that our waste reduction was also 79 per cent of the way. Alas, I fear that that is not the case. Instead, the Greens are extremely concerned to see that, despite the strategy, the targets are not being met and the overall amount of waste being produced is not being reduced.

This motion is an eleventh hour proposal to try to rescue the strategy—after all, 2010 is only two years away—to ensure that it is meaningful and perhaps to help the government prioritise some of the larger portions of waste which are still ending up in landfill, as well as some of the smaller but more toxic issues. In a moment I will go into detail about each of the points in the motion, but I want to use the motion to encourage us to work together as a community to leave the planet in the best possible condition for future generations, not to leave toxic landfills, and not to leave large areas of land that cannot be used because they are dedicated to ever-increasing landfills.

This motion is also about climate change. It is not too complex to understand that the more we produce, the more we buy and the more we waste, the more greenhouse gas emissions are produced. I want to refer members to two articles to strengthen my assertion that this is a climate change issue. I refer, first, to an article from Canada in which Rod Muir, founder of Waste Diversion Canada, states:

There is a very strong connection between waste diversion and the mitigation of climate change.

In aggregate nearly half the energy we produce and consume, is used to manufacture the goods we consume and discard.

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