Page 2316 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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procurement policies as this is where a full lifecycle analysis comes into play. Unless we are purchasing products such as 100 per cent post-consumer recycled paper for all our office paper needs, we are still not closing the loop and we are continuing to contribute to the general over-consumption malaise.
My advice would be to start by looking at ECO-Buy, a Victorian local council initiative—a centralised scheme that evaluates the needs of local councils across the board in Victoria and recommends which products are the most sustainable. It is a very successful program from which the ACT could learn a lot. At the moment I have an intern in my office who is working to see how we can make our procurement policies more sustainable.
I recognise that the ACT is not a great producer of manufactured items. Thus it makes it difficult to introduce meaningful legislation, such as extended producer responsibility, which is really where we need to be going and which is where many European governments have gone. It requires production companies to take responsibility for production waste, packaging and the product itself.
There are a number of other measures in my motion which include siting recycling bins beside all landfill rubbish bins in town centres. It is absurd that we do not have the ability to recycle in our city. If we are responsible citizens it means that, when we are away from home, we have to take our rubbish home. I do not think that is always realistic. We need a scheme to dispose safely of fluorescent and compact fluorescent light bulbs, which we will all have very soon, but they have a certain component of mercury and should not just go into landfill.
We need a drop-off scheme for the safe disposal of batteries, which we are all buying in much greater quantities due to our little Walkmans and other products that run on batteries, but at the moment we do not have a safe way of disposing of them. We need a green waste mulching scheme and commercial operations must be required to recycle paper and cardboard. We must have schemes such as the ANU’s HotRot system that enables the picking up of commercial kitchen waste.
Finally, we need to ensure that waste that is put into skips and trash packs is recycled at landfill sites. At the moment if you hire a skip the stuff just gets put into the landfill and is not recycled at all. So we have a big issue on our hands. The ACT used to be cutting edge with its waste disposal schemes. It is no longer cutting edge, even though the minister will try to tell us later that it is. Nonetheless, as he did not really listen to anything that I said in my speech I do not expect a fulsome response to it.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12.01): I was listening to what Dr Foskey was saying and I was also—
DR FOSKEY: I do not think so.
MR HARGREAVES: Dr Foskey does not listen to me if I interject. I was listening to Dr Foskey and I was also discussing the motion with Mr Pratt—something that we have not had an opportunity to do because the motion was put on the notice paper on Tuesday and yesterday we spent six hours debating the budget. If the motion had been
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