RECYCLING

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:06): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Environment and Conservation a question about recycling.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Mr President, as you are aware, this week is National Recycling Week, which highlights the many benefits to the environment that recycling brings. I know many members of this chamber are active recyclers, but some of us may be more committed than others in the lengths we go to to recycle, and the Hon. Mr Gazzola is a case in point.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I will leave that up to you. So, it might be beneficial to be reminded of the public good of recycling to encourage honourable members and members of the public to recycle more assiduously. To that end, will the minister inform the council of what benefits recycling can bring?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for his important question and, obviously, it has generated quite a bit of interest in members opposite. I share the member's sentiments that National Recycling Week is an extremely important initiative under the Rann government.

South Australia has become a national leader in recycling. It is this commitment to improving our recycling efforts that has led us to establish Zero Waste SA, which has helped foster a huge uptake in kerbside recycling services around the state. As members would be aware, there is considerable public demand for better environmental policy from government, with climate change being a major issue for this coming election. In fact, it was just a few days ago that 6,000 marchers took to the streets of Adelaide to walk against warming.

Events such as Walk Against Warming remind us of the simple things that we can do to minimise our carbon footprint, and I am pleased to inform the council that recycling is a fantastic means of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions because, in nearly all cases, less energy is needed to recycle a product than to produce it from scratch. As I said earlier, South Australians are already embracing this service, with 2.3 million tonnes of material being diverted from landfill in South Australia in 2005-06. This prevented more than 1.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of removing 287,508 cars from our roads or planting 1.8 million trees.

The greatest greenhouse benefits have been achieved through aluminium recycling, which results in only 5 per cent of the greenhouse gas emitted in primary aluminium production. Steel and glass also deliver high environmental benefits due to the large quantities of materials recovered in South Australia, and 31 South Australian councils now have high yielding kerbside collections, servicing 370,000 households, which contributes to this excellent outcome.

A catalyst for this improvement in kerbside recycling has been the state government's $4.8 million funding for councils to upgrade their recycling systems. However, almost half of what is left in the household waste bin is food organics, and removing this material from the waste stream would result in a total diversion rate of about 76 per cent, exceeding South Australia's waste strategy target for 2010. Diverting food organics from landfill is logically the next opportunity to cut the amount of waste going to landfill and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In response to local government interest, Zero Waste SA is considering how food waste could be most effectively incorporated into kerbside recycling collections, and I look forward to reporting on that initiative in the future.