Page 2525 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
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Earlier in the year the TCCS made revisions to the Recyclopedia website to share information about some of the different kinds of low-waste alternatives available for single-use nappies and other sanitary items. If you visit our state-of-the-art recycling discovery hub in Hume you will find examples of these products on display. And I am advised that the directorate is also looking at ways to promote waste avoidance in the wider community. For example, ACT NoWaste will be collaborating with Libraries ACT to provide family engagement activities and displays of alternative reusable products for National Recycling Week this year, from 7 to 11 November.
I commend the Canberra Environment Centre’s work in building awareness of low-waste, environmentally friendly alternatives. The centre already has a display wall of modern cloth nappies so that parents and parents-to-be can look at and feel the different types of modern cloth nappies, accessories, inserts and kits before making a purchase.
The Canberra Environment Centre regularly hosts workshops to help Canberrans reduce their environmental footprint, including an introduction to cloth nappies run by Canberra Cloth Bums, a local parents group. I applaud the Canberra Environment Centre’s ongoing efforts to promote awareness of initiatives to reduce waste going into landfill and I commend the leadership shown by Emma Black, as Ms Cheyne mentioned, founder of Canberra Cloth Bums, in reinforcing the importance of the issue to the Canberra community and the opportunities to make the system better.
I emphasise again that we do not want to limit people’s choices when it comes to these kinds of products. But what we want to do is support an informed discussion and encourage Canberrans through education to consider low-waste alternatives where relevant.
I thank Ms Cheyne for her motion today. I think that this has been a really good discussion and I welcome more frank and open discussion on the challenges that impact all of us in facing up to our waste. And I look forward to working with my colleagues on this matter and with the Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate and ACT NoWaste to see where the ACT government can continue to empower and support Canberrans to make sustainable choices and to reporting back to the Assembly in a couple of months time.
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (3.58): I have to agree with Minister Steel that it has been a very good discussion in this chamber. And I thank all members who have contributed to this discussion and shared their experiences, however recent or past, in a very frank and candid way. I think the more that we can bring to this place our personal stories, and those of our constituents and those who reach out to us, the better the debate that we can have here. I think that has resulted in broad agreement on some really key, fundamental issues here today.
Mr Parton: He speaks rubbish really well, does Mr Steel.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Parton! Ms Cheyne, please continue.
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