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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-30 Daily Xml
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WASTE MANAGEMENT

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (14:27): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Conservation. How is South Australia leading the nation in waste management practices?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business and Public Sector Management) (14:27): As members may be aware, we have set an ambitious target in South Australia in our Strategic Plan to reduce our waste, or landfill, by 25 per cent by 2014. To achieve that target we have established a number of innovative projects, not the least of which is the establishment of Zero Waste SA, an initiative of the former minister for environment, the honourable member for Kaurna.

Through Zero Waste we support community schools, councils and businesses to reduce and recycle their waste. Of course, this builds on the historic work that occurred back in 1977 with the introduction of the nation's first container deposit legislation. That one simple initiative alone has reduced one of the main components of litter and significant addition to landfill, that is, beverage containers, and it has been stunningly successful.

When he was here earlier this year at Clean Up Australia Day, Ian Kiernan pointed out that among the states South Australia has by far the lowest plastic bottle littering in our environment. It has a great degree of popularity; 92 per cent of people thought that South Australia's scheme encouraged and promoted recycling.

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Davenport!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: This is reflected in the percentage of containers returned for refunds. While recycling rates have always been high relative to the rest of the country, this government increased the deposit in August 2008 to encourage more people to recycle, and that has made an extraordinary difference.

In the three months after we increased the deposit from 5¢ to 10¢, the number of containers returned and refunded increased by more than 19 million. This was a 20 per cent reduction in the number of recyclable containers being dumped to landfill, which obviously saved litter and reduced the energy that was embedded in that.

Today, I am also pleased to note that, while South Australia was the first state or territory to implement the container deposit legislation, it now appears likely that we will not be the only state. Only two weeks ago, the Northern Territory Minister for Natural Resources, Environment and Heritage (Hon. Alison Anderson) visited South Australia to look at our scheme. She was impressed with what she saw here about our container deposit legislation—so impressed, I understand, that the Northern Territory is seriously considering the introduction of the container deposit scheme, and I understand that a big announcement about this is imminent.

The advice I have received is that the scheme in the Northern Territory is largely modelled on the South Australian scheme, where cans, bottles and cartons attract a 10¢ refund. The Premier has written to the Northern Territory government offering our support, and we look forward to assisting Territorians if they take this step towards a cleaner environment.

South Australia is justifiably proud not only of our container deposit legislation but of all our waste management innovations. Thirty years ago, our adoption of container deposit legislation was received with scepticism in other states, to say the least. South Australia has always been regarded as ahead of the country in this regard. Next Monday, just like 30 years ago, we will be taking another step on our own with the banning of plastic bags. Once again, we think that will be another practical step in the right direction.

We are very proud of the leadership role we have played in environmental matters in this state, which has largely been done on a bipartisan basis. We look forward to that continuing bipartisan support.

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