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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-19 Daily Xml
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WASTE MANAGEMENT

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:33): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing a question to the Minister for Water and the River Murray on the subject of trade waste.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The Liberal opposition has been contacted by several small businesses that are being required to implement various trade waste measures including grease traps and dissolved air flotation devices and the like. In particular, some of them are very small operations which do not process a large amount of food and they have therefore questioned that they are being required to install a device of a minimum of 1,000 litres which is required to be pumped out four times a year with all the attendant costs and so forth. My questions for the minister are:

1. Are there minimum specifications for very low risk operations and, if so, what are they?

2. What categories of businesses have been granted exemptions so far?

3. What is the situation for mobile vendors?

4. Do small businesses have any appeal rights to SA Water's decisions?

5. Is SA Water using an Australian standard to determine the rules, or is it devising its own, and have these changed since it started rolling the program out?

6. How many permits have been issued so far across South Australia?

7. What savings does SA Water expect will occur through reduction of load into its sewer system?

8. Can the minister confirm that the sewer pipe networks in Adelaide's metropolitan inner rim are at full capacity, so high density developments are being required to install on-site storages?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (14:34): I thank the honourable member for her most important questions—a number of questions requiring quite detailed answers that I do not have before me. They were on categories of exemptions available, mobile vendors and how they access sewerage pipes and waste management, the appeal rights that are available, Australian standards and how they are being applied, how many permits so far have been given out, the savings expected from reductions, and the capacity of the sewerage system.

I can say that we treat the system as one whole system and that what one person puts down a sewer has an impact on other businesses and, of course, householders in other parts of the system, so we need to be able to monitor the waste that goes down our sewerage system. We need to be able to make sure that, where appropriate, industry in particular that puts fatty wastes and other sorts of solids down that system has a mechanism on site where it can be filtered out and not have an impact on the system for everybody else. Otherwise, of course, we would have to be increasing our sewerage system at great cost to the whole system which has to be passed on to those users. But I undertake to take those detailed questions on notice and bring back an answer for the honourable member.

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