Resource Recovery

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation. How does South Australia compare nationally when it comes to resource recovery?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. This week is National Recycling Week and here in South Australia there is an awful lot for us to be celebrating. We are recognised both nationally and of course internationally as leaders in the resource recovery industry. For many South Australians, recycling is a normal part of everyday life. We separate out our recycling our plastics, our cardboard and our glass. We compost and use organic waste bins on the sink and much, much more around the house.

This has not come about overnight. It has developed over a number of years, and it hasn't come about without quite a bit of work being put in by government agencies, local government agencies, community organisations and of course industry. Years of legislative reform have brought about this shared sentiment that recycling is a necessary and easy part of our lives, and the easy part is quite crucial to making sure that we get higher rates.

Particularly, South Australians can be proud of our container deposit scheme. Today on the steps of this building, I met with members of the resource recovery industry to celebrate this year being the 40^th anniversary of the container deposit scheme legislation and the CDS has been part and parcel of our lives in South Australia for many years. It is ingrained as part of our state's identity, so much so that the scheme's legislation is the only piece of South Australian legislation, at least that I'm aware of, to be listed as a state heritage icon.

Four decades on from South Australia introducing the scheme, we are seeing other states and territories follow suit. The first cab off the rank in January 2012 was our neighbour to the north. After a bit of a bumpy start, the Northern Territory scheme commenced.

Five years on from that, now New South Wales will be the next state to offer a 10¢ refund on containers. Their scheme, I am advised, will start in December of this year. I am also advised that the ACT will follow suit in early 2018. The Queensland scheme will commence in July 2018, and Western Australia has announced that their container deposit scheme will commence in January 2019.

And why wouldn't they, Mr President? Since implementing the scheme, our state of South Australia has seen many benefits to our economy and our communities, and particularly to our environment, and also to our reputation as a clean and green state, which has flowed through to many other areas of the economy.

There are many factors that led to South Australia making the move to adopt such a forward-thinking piece of legislation. Of course, South Australia has a long history of recycling beverage containers dating back as far as the late 1800s, although at that time those beverages were mainly alcoholic. Local beer and soft drink manufacturers practised their own form of voluntary recycling and return in order to recover and refill their refillable bottles. I remember collecting some of those old lemonade bottles from the back of the shed occasionally (the ones with the marble stopper in them) and taking them back to the shops, and exchanging about 30 or 40 of them for a bag of 5¢ mixed lollies.

The system served the South Australia community well until the introduction of single-trip, non-refillable beverage containers in the late 1970s, which changed everything. This led to increases in containers and litter and posing potential threats to the environment, particularly of our waterways. The then Labor government of Don Dunstan responded to the increase in litter from these single-use containers on 1 January 1977, and the container deposit scheme commenced.

Ever since, the scheme has helped South Australia lead in recycling and has been incredibly popular with almost universal support across the state. Over the last 40 years, the scheme has yielded many benefits to South Australia beyond its direct impact on our environment and resource recovery sector. It is clear that the rest of Australia sees the value of what we are doing, and there are many outcomes that South Australians can be proud of.

For every 10,000 tonnes of waste diverted away from landfill we create about 9.2 full-time jobs, compared to just 2.8 if that same amount of waste ended up in landfill. The waste and resource recovery sector is one that employs nearly 5,000 South Australians. It is worth about $1 billion a year to the state and returns about half a billion dollars to the state's economy through GSP.

Community groups have come up with clever ideas to utilise the scheme to generate income to support their activities. For example, the South Australian Scouts run a recycling centre that includes refund depots as well as collection services for event organisations and also hotels. This scheme is a major source of income for this not-for-profit organisation, underpinning the services they provide to young South Australians. Scouts have told me that their low rate of scout membership fees in South Australia is directly because of the container recycling that they do as an organisation, allowing them to run their business, essentially, in a way that is going to be much cheaper for families than in comparable states to our east.

South Australia is now diverting 3.91 million tonnes of waste, or 81.5 per cent of all waste, away from landfill—and that is a fantastic outcome. This government has built on the successful legislation implemented by previous Labor governments and has taken decisive action to improve and protect our environment whilst simultaneously growing our economy. A lot of the credit for that goes to the person who asked me this question today, the Hon. Gail Gago. It was through her leadership, whilst a minister, that we continued to improve our recycling rates since taking office and banned lightweight plastic bags—another fantastic reform that is now being copied around Australia, led right here in South Australia by the Hon. Gail Gago. I congratulate her on that leadership.

Just last month, Victoria announced that they are going to introduce a ban on single-use plastic bags as well, after they have had a consultation period. Now I am advised that New South Wales is the only state or territory to not have announced or introduced a ban on lightweight plastic bags. They cannot hold out too much longer, I would have thought.

It is through this sort of work that our state is regarded as a leader in the waste and resource recovery industry. It would be tempting, I suppose, for some to rest there and say, 'That's fantastic; there's not much more we can do,' but that would be an admission, I think, of failure. We need to continue to improve and we need to continue to encourage the community to recycle more. We need to educate the community, particularly our young people, who are some of our best educators because what they learn they take home to their families and encourage them to put those processes in place.

In recent years, we have announced a number of bold new initiatives, including our ambition to make Adelaide the world's first carbon neutral city. This and many other initiatives put South Australia ahead of the curve and make us a leader in Australia in resource recovery and the ever expanding global low carbon economy, where we expect our leadership will provide our state and our economy with great advantages in the future. We at the front, leading not just the nation but many of the countries in our region, can actually take advantage of being early adopters, encouraging industry to set up in our state, encouraging research to set up in our state around some of the pressing issues that other states and countries will need to resolve in coming years.

Congratulations to all those involved in industry and community groups. I think I was advised that about $60 million a year is returned to community organisations in our state through our container deposit legislation and the way it acts and the way they are being collected by those community organisations. It is a fantastic foundation for those community organisations, and it is a resounding success for an initiative led by a Labor government. This Labor government will get on and deliver similar initiatives into the future, particularly around emissions reduction and particularly around our ambition to make Adelaide the world's first carbon neutral city.