Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to talk on this landmark package of legislation today, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 and associated bills. I want to congratulate the Minister for the Environment, the member for Farrer, and the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, the member for Brisbane, on the work they've done over many months, in fact years, in putting this legislation together. This legislation is about Australia stepping up and taking responsibility for the waste that we produce, rather than shipping it offshore and outsourcing our responsibility. It's about Australia developing new waste-processing industries, creating new businesses and jobs and new products, and it's about the transformation of Australia's waste and recycling sector and the development of a circular economy.

Waste is an environmental problem to solve, and solve it we must, but it's also an economic opportunity to seize, and seize it we must. These bills will do just that. The bills have three main objectives. The first is to enact a prohibition on waste exports. Once that is enacted, the export of waste material will be prohibited unless certain conditions are met: that it is being processed into a value-added material or that it will be reused or used as a manufacturing input overseas. This will help phase out some 645,000 tonnes of unprocessed plastic, paper, glass and tyres that Australia currently ships overseas each year. The export of mixed plastics will be banned from 1 July 2021, whole used tyres from 1 December 2021, single-resin or polymer plastics from 1 July 2022, and mixed and unsorted paper and cardboard from 1 July 2024.

Secondly, this package of legislation addresses the issue of product stewardship. These bills will replace and improve the existing Product Stewardship Act 2011 and provide for three kinds of product stewardship scheme: voluntary, co-regulatory and mandatory. The bill will encourage the development of a circular economy in Australia by enhancing voluntary product stewardship and supporting businesses to consider the full life cycle of products. It will encourage and, if it is needed, impose obligations upon manufacturers, distributors and importers of certain products to help manage the full life cycle of these products, from design and production through to reuse and disposal, and ensure that these producers take greater responsibility for the impact of these products on the environment. Overall, this will help improve the design, durability, reparability and reusability of products and help lower the overall environmental footprint of them—things such as batteries, printer cartridges, photovoltaics and others. The bills will also facilitate voluntary product stewardship arrangements and accreditation with a product stewardship logo that will let consumers know that they are making a responsible choice.

Thirdly, these bills will help realise the economic and community benefits of processing waste in Australia. They will help create new industries, products and jobs, and they will be complemented by our $191 million Recycling Modernisation Fund, recently announced in the budget. This fund will help leverage around $600 million of recycling infrastructure investment. It will help create around 10,000 new jobs. It will help divert more than 10 million tonnes of waste from landfill. All up, this waste export ban is expected to generate potentially $1½ billion in new economic activity over the next 20 years.

The House Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources, of which I'm a member, has been conducting an inquiry into Australia's waste management and recycling industries, as my colleague the member for Higgins just mentioned. Through this inquiry we have learnt already how much of a contribution recycling is making in Australia. We've heard about the growing use of recycled crushed glass in road construction as an alternative material to sand. We've heard from the charitable op-shop sector, in many respects the pioneers of Australia's circular economy—the first op shop in Australia was opened in 1880 by the Salvos—about how their business model has actually thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, through the roughly 3,000 charitable op shops around the country, some 285 million products a year are given a second life through reuse, diverting some 622,000 tonnes of waste from landfill every year and, in doing so, generating some $550 million in annual revenue for social welfare programs supporting disadvantaged communities and people. So the circular economy is already here in Australia. It's been here since 1880. These bills are about accelerating and growing the circular economy.

Through this inquiry, we've also heard from the National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations about how a large amount of textile waste in Australia is still sent to landfill each year, some 679,000 tonnes. That's a resource recovery rate of only 12 per cent. If these textiles could be diverted to the op-shop network, which has recovery rates of almost 90 per cent, a vast amount of waste could be diverted from landfill. The fashion and clothing industry in Australia needs to do a better job of taking responsibility for this, and it's an important message to all Australians: do not just throw out your old clothing; take it to the op shop. As NACRO told us, 'Clothing textiles donated to charities are a resource, not a waste.' So let's give them more resources.

We've also heard in this inquiry from the National Waste and Recycling Industry Council about how government can make an impact by addressing product stewardship regulations for batteries, packaging, all electronics, photovoltaics and tyres and establishing producer or manufacturer collecting and recycling services for these products. We also heard from them about how diverting more food and organic waste from domestic and commercial recycling bins would have a massive impact, given it accounts for some 50 per cent of the volume going to landfill. That's right: food and organic waste is currently 50 per cent of the volume that goes to landfill, and the decomposition of this food and organic waste without oxygen, which is frequently what happens in landfill sites, leads to the production of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

I want to reflect here and congratulate one of the local government areas in my electorate of Wentworth, the Randwick City Council, which has recently introduced a food and organic waste collection service. Unfortunately, far too few councils in the Sydney metropolitan area offer such a service. I urge other councils in Sydney to look at the Randwick City Council model and look to do the same.

Through this inquiry, we've also heard from IKEA about its ambition to transform itself into a completely circular business by 2030 and its use of furniture buyback, which is now available for 10,000 articles, going back some ten years, and which is now live in all 10 Australian IKEA stores. So far under this scheme, some 5,044 pieces of furniture have been returned, and this will only grow over time. It's a remarkable initiative, a leading initiative, from a company that is often known for being at the forefront of such innovations.

Extensive consultation on this bill over the past few years has been conducted, with discussion papers, industry roundtables, extensive engagement with states and territories and comprehensive stakeholder engagement. Again, I want to applaud the work of the assistant minister and the minister for the comprehensive task they have done in this regard. The feedback from these consultations has been incorporated into these bills.

In conclusion, in Australia we generate more waste per capita than in many other countries. We need to do better—better at finding ways to reuse goods, better at diverting products away from landfill, better at turning waste products into valuable inputs, better at finding ways to unlock and repurpose the value in much of what we currently dispose of and better at taking full responsibility for all we use and consume, throughout its lifecycle. These bills are an important first step, and I commend them to the House.

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