Thursday, 14 November 2019

 Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (18:13): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change in the other place, and the action I seek is that the government commits to providing every household in Victoria with a green bin for food and garden organics. One of the simplest and most effective means to reduce our waste going to landfill is to create effective systems to divert food and garden organics for composting, not landfill. Today, food scraps and garden waste make up about 47 per cent of what ends up in our household rubbish bins, according to recent Sustainability Victoria audits. Add organic waste from cafes and restaurants, food, wood and plant-based businesses and our landfill is overflowing with readily recyclable and compostable resources that could be used to enrich the soil of our farms, parks and gardens. What makes this matter worse is that food scraps rotting in landfill generate significant methane levels, a powerful climate pollutant, as they decompose in the waste pile. When effectively composted they create far less climate pollution and can sequestrate carbon when returned to our soils.

In the absence of leadership from the Victorian Labor government, in recent years about 24 local councils across Victoria have taken the lead in introducing systems to allow food scraps to be collected, along with garden organics, in green bins and taken for centralised composting. These changes have been very well received by the community and have been strongly taken up. This leadership is to be applauded.

Unfortunately around 20 of the 79 councils have no green waste collection at all. Few, if any, have green waste bins for every home, and many have irregular pick-ups for green waste. The main barrier for councils implementing food and garden organics collections is the cost. That is where the state government has a responsibility to step in. We know the government collects around $215 million annually through the landfill levy. The Parliamentary Budget Office costing obtained by the Greens indicates that for about half this cost green waste bins could be rolled out to every household in Victoria and food and garden organics could be collected for composting at new facilities dotted around the state.

I would suggest that there are few more appropriate and important uses of the landfill levy than implementing this composting service, which would divert significant amounts of waste from landfill. I strongly welcomed the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change committing on 8 November, along with other environment ministers from all the other states, to halving the amount of organic waste sent to landfill. I ask: will the government commit to providing green bins for food and garden organics to every household in Victoria in order to achieve this commitment?