Page 2463 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
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We also need to recycle the resources we do use for their highest possible use. This means we use fewer resources, which are usually finite. The extraction of most resources has some sort of environmental impact and causes environmental damage when they are extracted. If you think of things like oil for plastics, timber and even the metals that go into many of the electronic goods that we consume these days, these resources both are finite and have environmental consequences by their harvesting.
Organic waste is one important area of recycling in which we have a particular interest. Currently, organic waste largely goes to landfill, where it breaks down anaerobically and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. We need to collect and process it through processes like composting or anaerobic digestion. Not only does this reduce the greenhouse gas impact of releasing all of that methane but it actually creates a valuable resource. Composting, for example, creates soil enrichers, and these improve the soil. That is another valuable climate change mitigation measure, as soil can sequester carbon. I recently saw a news report of a new scientific study that found that we have underestimated the impact of soils in terms of their capture and also the potential release of greenhouse gases under various scenarios. The impact on soil is very important.
The main point I would emphasise in today’s debate is that we are mostly at the point where the government needs to be getting on with it. We need to be implementing waste and recycling solutions. There has been a lot of policy work done on waste over many years. We have had some very good studies, analysis, policy ideas and cogitation. There was a federal Senate report from a committee which my colleague Peter Whish-Wilson was on and has been very vocal about. I think we have all the ideas; we need to get on with creating the industries. There are always points around job creation. It is particularly relevant in this context, and that is why implementation is the key to this.
As an example, my colleague Ms Le Couteur moved a motion in the Assembly recently regarding the collection and recycling of organic household waste. In coming years there will be some moves on that, which is a good outcome, but it is an issue that has been around for some time. This demonstrates the fact that the policy work is often well advanced but the implementation tends to be rather slower than we might care for.
As I said, the issue of the recycling industry specifically is a good one. The China sword policy has particularly highlighted the problem that Australia and many other countries are relying on recycling industries in other countries. We should be setting up our own. There are many advantages to setting up our own. They include local jobs and industries but also closer oversight to ensure that the recycling is occurring properly; fewer carbon miles; and even the removal of the “out of sight, out of mind” effect, which plays on human behaviour when it comes to things like waste.
Rather than sending the products we use to another country, they will need to be processed here. That really is the way it should work. I am not saying that everything needs to be processed in the Canberra region, but there are real opportunities for us to
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