Waste Recycling

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (15:21): My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation. Could the minister inform the chamber about South Australia's recycling rates and how the state government plans to increase these rates into the future?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:22): A fantastic question, and I would be tempted to talk about how the Liberal opposition recycles old policies and failures but, Mr President, I will refrain. The week of 9 to 15 November was National Recycling Week—a Planet Ark initiative which is now in its 20^th year and which aims to raise awareness of the environmental benefits of recycling.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: A fair bit of recycling is going to happen here next sitting week by the sound of it.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: If the Hon. Mr Ridgway wants to talk about recycling, Mr President, I can give it to him. How many policies have they had that they have recycled over the last, what, five elections you have lost on the trot? How many policies have they lost, put in the too-hard basket, recycled again, or pinched from somebody else?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Where are they on their websites from the last election? They seem to always disappear, and that's probably why they forgot what their policies were in the first place. We certainly can't find them; we're not even sure they had any. This is something that South Australians—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Minister, sit down. Now listen, I'm going to make sure that the crossbench get their full entitlement of questions. If you are going to consistently interrupt the answers, you will miss out on the questions, not the crossbench. Minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you for your protection, Mr President, and I will refrain from the temptations being offered up by the Hon. Mr Ridgway to talk about their failures in the past. I want to talk about something positive, because that is what this government does—a Planet Ark initiative now in its 20^th year that aims to raise awareness of the environmental benefits of recycling.

This is something that South Australians have long been aware of, as we can see in our national and world-leading recycling rates. South Australia's Recycling Activity Study 2013-14 shows that 80 per cent of all waste in South Australia, or 3.59 million tonnes of material, is being diverted away from landfill.

This is an extraordinary effort and one that South Australians can all be very proud of. It has prevented the equivalent of about 1.13 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere—the environmental equivalent of taking more than 257,000 cars off the road. In order to build on these achievements, the state government has put together the state's third Waste Strategy 2015-20, which I released on Friday 13 November.

The new strategy maps out how South Australia will meet its target of reducing landfill from 2003 levels by 35 per cent. Importantly, the new strategy also aims to capitalise further on the fundamental shift on waste management that we have seen over the recent years.

Increasingly, waste is regarded as a valuable resource. The waste management and resource recovery sector is an important and growing sector of the South Australian economy, and is similar in economic value to the fishing and aquaculture industries.

The sector has an annual turnover of approximately $1 billion. I am advised that it contributes about half a billion dollars to the gross state product directly and indirectly, supporting over 4,800 full-time equivalent jobs. Nationally it is estimated that the waste sector is worth about $14.2 billion per year, and our new waste strategy explores ways of growing the sector by developing and adopting innovative products and services. It sets out three new objectives:

creating a resource efficient economy that secures the best or full value from products and materials produced, consumed and recovered across the state;

ensuring a stable and efficient market for investors through clear policy that provides a solid platform for investment decisions; and

encouraging the South Australian community and businesses and all institutions to continue to strengthen their role in implementing zero waste strategies and programs locally, nationally and internationally.

The waste strategy also sets new targets for diverting waste from landfill, including 90 per cent of metropolitan construction and demolition waste, 80 per cent of metropolitan commercial and industrial waste, and 70 per cent of metropolitan household kerbside waste by 2020.

The key focus of the strategy is to create new jobs by encouraging activity in product development, remanufacturing and refurbishment. Importantly, through this waste strategy we aim to help reduce cost-of-living pressures for South Australians through a rapidly growing momentum of the collaborative economy and through high performance recycling systems, which will help keep council rates lower.

Realising the economic potential from innovation and technology is the overriding ambition of this third waste strategy. We want to take full advantage of the enormous economic potential arising from new technologies and the trend towards remanufacturing. I sincerely thank the many organisations and individuals who contributed comments during consultation for the waste strategy and who have offered input to the state government's planned reforms to the sector.

I think we released recently funding grant rounds for innovation funding through green industries, $300,000 worth of grants—$100,000 to three recipients. From memory, one was for CDL Solutions, and they are trying to make an innovative, mechanised way of sorting containers from the container deposit legislation.

Another one is Aspitech, an organisation that would be well known to members. They are doing great work in assisting in the recycling and pulling apart of electronic waste, so computers, TVs and other digital electronic equipment that I will never touch and never use, but I am sure many members do. If they recycle their iPhones over the years that would be very helpful as well. There was another $100,000 to another organisation, Plastics Granulating Services, and they are involved in more efficient disposal of mixed plastics.

All up, I understand those three projects, the proponents tell us, will for a small amount of government money, $300,000 (which I suppose is not that small) involve another $7 million of private sector investment on top of that. So our contribution is unleashing those innovative potentials, and hopefully they will employ another 70 South Australians through those programs.

So we congratulate them for working in this very important sector, for employing South Australians and for innovating in the technology sense, because waste management is going to be a growing sector for this state. It has been over the last decade, will continue to be and is a very important economic driver for us.