Share your views on the draft ACT Sustainable Waste Strategy

What is the link between waste and climate change? Several links.
– As organic wastes degrade in landfill, they produce methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Landfill gas capture systems can be installed to capture some, but not all, gas from landfill.
– There is a carbon footprint for each bit of stuff discarded as waste. From resource extraction through manufacture, use and disposal, the life cycles of stuff have greenhouse emissions attached to them. Keeping stuff from becoming waste can reduce the greenhouse emissions associated with the products and materials circulating in our economy.
– Some options for dealing with waste can reduce greenhouse emissions compared with alternative options. This is not just the obvious stuff like recycling aluminium rather than landfilling it and making more from virgin sources (energy and ghg intensive to do). For example. taking green waste and turning it into compost, then applying that compost to agricultural or horticultural soils can lock up carbon in those soils. It can also reduce the need for chemical fertiliser inputs that have their own greenhouse footprint.

For me, it would be great to see a periodic hard waste collection introduced in Canberra. I’d also like to see a greenwaste bin, possibly with integrated food waste/green waste collection and composting or digestion, such as is happening in South Australia. But paying for this will mean copping charges, such as a rates increase. On balance, I’m OK with that.

shadow boxer said :

Dont ask me, I dont even understand what is so bad about landfill, the one out at Belconnen served us well for mny years then push some dirt over it and build houses, what’s the big deal ?

Assuming that you’re not being sarcastic, Belconnen landfill is the subject of serious environmental concerns. It turns out that when you bury thousands of cubic metres of garbage that toxins and pollutants find their way in to the water table. In the case of Belconnen landfill the proximity to the Murrumbidgee River is a bit of an issue.

I hope a hard rubbish (‘council’) collection is finally included in the waste strategy. I don’t care about the other specious rubbish about ‘sustainable waste’. I already compost my green waste, because I have a thing called a backyard.

I-filed said :

In all seriousness, where on the ACT Govt website can we find the outcomes report on the “No Waste by 2010” strategy? There will surely have been an evaluation component built in during the planning stage, and a formal reporting mechanism?

Since “No Waste 2010” was reclassified as an aspirational target, maybe being able to justify the strategy also became an aspirational target?

Chief Ten Beers said :

What does waste have to do with climate change?

Exactly what I was thinking.

Dont ask me, I dont even understand what is so bad about landfill, the one out at Belconnen served us well for mny years then push some dirt over it and build houses, what’s the big deal ?

wildturkeycanoe said :

We don’t even get the Chronicle so how apart from letter box drops are we [the non-socialites] supposed to know about these goings on? Stuff the environment, I’m in the burbs!

If they stop letterbox drops then they wipe out a whole industry! Gee, even Stanhope and the rest of the pollies have been known to get rid of their waste in my letter box.

Apart from “Carbon neutral waste sector” sounding like we’re part of a futuristic Earth where all inhabitants are classified not by their status but by the size of their rubbish bins….
What is the point in having community forums asking for input on a draft plan and then a day after these forums providing a workshop on energy from waste? So, get the uninformed public approval and then tell them the truth after they’ve agreed to the “draft”?? Typical government flim-flam. If I hadn’t seen it here on Riotact I wouldn’t have even known about it. Public consultation my A$$. Not everyone buys the local rag, or watches the local news [now that pay TV is our god]. We don’t even get the Chronicle so how apart from letter box drops are we [the non-socialites] supposed to know about these goings on? Stuff the environment, I’m in the burbs!

In all seriousness, where on the ACT Govt website can we find the outcomes report on the “No Waste by 2010” strategy? There will surely have been an evaluation component built in during the planning stage, and a formal reporting mechanism?

I thought we already got rid of all the waste by 2010?

oh wait a minute….

What does waste have to do with climate change?

Exactly what I was thinking.