Page 3389 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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the plastic we recycle is shipped offshore to developing countries to make synthetic fabrics for clothing, carpeting and other textile-based products. The reality is that these products often end up in something like the $5 T-shirt you buy at a discount retailer that only lasts a couple of washes before losing its shape. Presently, much of this material will eventually end up as landfill. However, more and more there are retailers asking their customers to return the unwanted clothes so that the material can be reused once more.
The growing demand for clothing, the greater ease with which plastic bottles can be used to produce synthetic textiles and the low price of oil have meant that drink manufacturers continue to produce plastic bottles with at least 90 per cent new material. And every time one of us buys a drink in a plastic bottle 90 per cent of that is new waste that we must try to keep out of landfill.
Given that in 2015 Australians purchased over 726 million litres of water, it is clear that our first principle must be: do no harm. This problem is only compounded by the fact that pumping water out of the ground, packaging, transporting and chilling the water creates around 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year. But when you consider that Australians are importing water from as far away as Fiji or France, the environmental consequences are enormous.
The most obvious solution is to prevent the waste in the first place. A terrific side effect of this is that it is significantly cheaper for you in the long run. The average price of bottled water per litre is nearing $3, whereas the cost of ICON water is typically less than 1c per litre. Sydney Water states that if you are drinking eight glasses of water a day tap water will cost you less than $1.50 a year compared to around $2,600 for bottled water.
A common rebuttal to the need to take environmental action is that to take action is most costly and that we are always faced with the prospect of having to trade off our financial wellbeing in order to improve our environmental wellbeing. However, here is a practical example of significant savings derived from environmental action. And it is hardly the only case, as I have discussed in previous motions I have put to the Assembly.
Of course we all get caught short and sometimes need to buy a bottle of water or allow ourselves a sugary bottled treat. And it is an unfortunate reality that for the time being single-use plastic remains a part of our lives. This is why the ACT government is taking an active role in managing waste. Earlier this year we introduced a container deposit scheme. Less than two months into operation the scheme has already collected one million items. As an added benefit, around 10 per cent of the proceeds generated by the scheme have been donated by the community to charities such as the Salvation Army and Saint Vincent de Paul. It will not be long before we can walk into our local K-Mart, Target or Big W and walk out wearing the bottles we recycled previously using the container deposit scheme.
The ACT is also a leader in banning single-use plastic bags. I appreciate that the shift away from single-use bags in supermarkets was an inconvenience at first. It requires behavioural change, which is what has led to the frustrations experienced elsewhere
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