Page 1220 - Week 03 - Thursday, 31 March 2011
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hotels but in a normal domestic environment in Germany. They have three bins under their sinks. They have got three bins, including a cardboard bin, and it is amazing how well they can do it when you consider that they are retrofitting their waste systems onto buildings which were built for something quite different. Their cardboard collection goes out on the front footpath. The front footpath is only about two metres wide. The Germans, as we all know, are very neat, but they do manage to do it.
I am sure that everyone has noted that if you fly anywhere overseas the first thing you notice at the airport is that they have got recycling bins there. As Mr Coe said, we should have, and we could have, more recycling bins. Recycling bins in town centres and at events are one of the things that the Greens have been pushing for for years. I am very pleased to hear that Mr Coe also supported this.
One of the things we have to do is have a more nuanced approach to waste. We cannot just say that it is all waste and it should all be treated the same. In this context I note what is happening at a commonwealth level with electronics. The plan is, and I hope this will be implemented soon, that when we buy a piece of electronic goods we will pay for its re-use and recycling in the future. When we buy a new TV, a new computer or a new whatever, a small portion of our initial cost will go towards its eventual disposal.
That is what needs to happen with more and more things. We need to look at them from a cradle-to-grave point of view. The grave cannot be a getting-rid-of-it grave. It needs to be a re-using-it grave. I suppose that that is not really a grave.
Some things that we are doing in the ACT are not going in that direction. One thing I would particularly like to highlight is the fact that the government a few months ago was saying that they were considering charging charities—for example, St Vinnie’s and the Smith Family—if they in fact ended up having to take any waste to landfill.
I know there is a considerable problem with members of the public dumping things inappropriately with these charities. These charities do a really good job in removing things from the waste stream. They make soft toys, clothing, books, kitchen items and other things all available for re-use. Only a small proportion of what they collect is diverted to the tip. They need to be able to divert that to the tip under the current arrangements at no cost. So I was very concerned to find the government was talking about that.
One of the other items I want to talk about concerns the recycling of batteries and light globes. I was surprised to find that Mr Coe thought this might be a very expensive item. I would point out to Mr Coe—unfortunately, he is not here to point it out to—that the ACT Greens, for quite a number of months last year, had a trial of battery and light globe recycling in our office. We had a very good response, despite very limited publicity. The Greens were able to fund this. I would hazard a guess that the Greens’ financial resources are an awful lot less than the resources of the ACT government. I would also like to point out why it is so important to actually treat batteries and light globes specially. I quote from a 2010 analysis of battery consumption and recycling disposal in Australia:
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