Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very disappointed that Labor will be supporting the Statute Update (Smaller Government) Bill 2017 tonight and very disappointed that the government is trying to scrap, especially, the product stewardship scheme. Let me tell you why. One of the key reasons I came to parliament—one of the things I campaigned on for years before I came to this place—was trying to solve problems with waste and especially waste that find its way into the ocean, waste that breaks down into millions of pieces, like microplastics, microbeads. That is one of the things that the product stewardship scheme is tasked with looking at. I'm disappointed that Senator Paterson's government has run down CAMAC, the product stewardship scheme and these other organisations to a point where they're essentially ineffective. But they're really, really important.

Product stewardship is an important initiative in the sense that it brings producers of products together, brings retailers together and even brings consumers together. It's actually supposed to be a holistic approach and solution to solving waste problems. Look at a product stewardship scheme that has been relatively successful—say, e-waste; a situation where we've offered a premium or a cash bonus for people who want to actually take in their e-waste because they pay a little bit extra when they buy a product. Sometimes these are called cash-for-products schemes. We've seen them with container deposit schemes. As you know, Acting Deputy President Bernardi, your home state of South Australia is very proud of the recycling refund scheme it has there. It's one of the best schemes in the country, and South Australia has the highest recycling rates in the country.

Let's go back to e-waste; I'll get to other forms of product stewardship schemes. You buy a TV, a video recorder, a DVD player or whatever it happens to be. Video recorders went out probably about 15 years ago—that tells you something about debate late on a very tiring Wednesday night! Nevertheless, you buy through your scheme, and when you take it back you get a refund. What's happened is that the e-waste scheme has actually been too successful. The scheme has been targeted at certain kinds of waste that are well recycled, because they have very valuable inputs to their production. It has exceeded its mandate, so we see the kinds of stuff that we see dumped by the side of the road—old televisions, radios and all those kinds of things. We have in place a scheme that works effectively in making sure not only that items are properly disposed of but that they can be recycled or reprocessed. There is a difference between recycling and reprocessing. Reprocessing is a word that applies to a product that can be used to make the same thing again, whereas with recycling we tend to take products from something and make a totally alternative product. For example, breaking glass and using it to make road base is an example of recycling. Reprocessing is entirely different from recycling. We can take valuable metals out of certain electronic items and reprocess them and make those same items again. This kind of closed-loop producer-responsibility product-stewardship scheme has proven very effective with e-waste.

There have been a couple of disappointments—I'll be honest. That's because of a lack of funding and a lack of leadership. Tyres are a really good example. In my home state of Tasmania we consistently see suspicious fires where tyres that have been stacked up, usually in rural areas, suddenly start burning and produce horrendous environmental externalities. They get investigated—the police say there are suspicious circumstances—but nobody ever seems to be busted.

This week the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee inquiry that I'm chairing is looking at the problem with other forms of waste, after the Four Corners expose recently about the illegal dumping of waste. Why is that occurring? Why are people in New South Wales taking all sorts and forms of waste and dumping them in places like Queensland? Part of it is the difference in levies between the states—it's more profitable to dump it in Queensland—but the other part of it is that we have no recycling schemes in place for a lot of these products. The easiest thing is actually to sell the waste to China, and China recently, of course, as all senators in here would know, has said that it's not going to take products, especially plastics, for much longer.

We're in a bit of a pickle in this country. We've got this massive amount of plastic that we all use—way too much in our modern consumption and the lifestyles we live these days. We're selling a lot of it to China and we're illegally dumping it. A lot of it goes to landfill. What else could we do with it? That is what the environment committee is looking at, but I can tell you that product stewardship schemes are absolutely essential to any solution. The concept behind product stewardship schemes is that producers take responsibility, as well as retailers and consumers. The idea is that the responsibility should be shared amongst the different stakeholders, which is really important when coming to a final solution.

Our lifestyles and our waste are among the more serious environmental problems we face as a country. We're not the only one. Other countries have brought in successful product stewardship schemes. Let's look at Germany. Germany have a scheme in place which is a little bit different to the South Australian scheme. They tend to design products for end of life. So if you buy a bottle of lemonade or fizzy soft drink—it's not good for your health, so I wouldn't recommend it—in Germany, those bottles are used 20 times. They're washed and re-used, and there's a number on them that says how many times they've been re-used. On the 20th time they then go for reprocessing and they actually make them into new bottles at the end of life. They're designed for that. There are certain incentives that the government put in place to actually help those beverage companies to come up with a new kind of product. That's very much part of the ethos of product stewardship schemes—producers and retailers taking responsibility. In Germany, when you go to the supermarket there are reverse vending machines there, or you can actually hand over the bottles at the checkout place and you get a credit on your shopping list. So retailers take responsibility. Guess who else does? The consumer does. The consumer buys the product and then they take it back. So it's all three groups.

There's an example of what we're looking at here in Australia. South Australia's been leading on this for years. The Northern Territory dipped their toe in the pond not too recently. They've had a few, shall we say, teething problems, but nevertheless their scheme is underway for beverage containers. Now we have New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, and hopefully Tasmania and Victoria signing up to a product stewardship scheme—a scheme for bottles and containers, including cardboard containers like those for chocolate milk, which is also something I don't necessarily recommend that you drink or buy. These help with out-of-home litter and help increase recycling rates. South Australia is leading the country, with nearly 85 per cent of all beverage containers recycled or reprocessed. Once again, it relies on a legislated product stewardship scheme.

The reason I'm giving you a bit of a sermon as to the importance of product stewardship schemes is we have a situation here where we have a product stewardship advisory group. I have a list of members here in front of me, and I actually know a couple of them quite well personally, such as Mr Jeff Angel at the Total Environment Centre. He's an environmentalist and conservationist, but he's a lot more than that. He's dedicated his life to solving the problem of waste. In terms of beverage containers, he's actually really close. His group is the Boomerang Alliance, which I used to be part of when I was chair of the Surfrider Foundation in my state and on the national board. He's actually gotten really close to achieving this around the country with a product stewardship scheme. He's done that because he's been part of groups like this. So why are we actually looking at pulling funding for such an important concept at a time when it's absolutely critical and a time when actually we need leadership?

I'll give some examples of other types of waste that are part of the products list, like plastic microbeads. A lot of Australians don't realise that, in their toothpaste, their shampoo and other products they use, companies use plastic as filler. When you brush your teeth and spit down the drain, millions—literally millions in a single mouthful—of microbeads are going into the ocean. That's exactly what we are finding in fish in Sydney Harbour. We are finding microbeads in plankton in the Antarctic. The ocean is full of this stuff. Mr Greg Hunt said that he would introduce a voluntary ban on microbeads, but he then went under a lot of pressure from people involved in the product stewardship scheme, like Mr Jeff Angel, and he then said he would bring in a compulsory ban on these microbeads within 12 months. That's something we've got to hold him to account on. It's an example of something we know is toxic to the environment. We know that it's unnecessary; we don't need plastic in our toothpaste. It's actually been community pressure, community groups and the leadership of the product stewardship schemes that have got us to a point where we are close to banning this toxic plastic product that we just don't need.

There are also batteries. In your home state of South Australia, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi—