Southern
Beaches Conservation Society
Dump
the Toxic Dump
MEDIA
RELEASE
For Immediate Release 20 Dec 2015
Another shonky move by government
If Matthew Groom really wants Tasmania to be a clean green
state why has he turned down a waste levy in favour of funding landfill? In
other jurisdictions, in line with first world countries, high waste levies are
put into place by government in order to encourage phasing out landfill in
accord with the recommendations from the OECD.
Instead of funding the C cell State government would be far
better off implementing a state waste management strategy - raising a hazardous
waste levy to encourage business to deal with their own waste and using
proposed funding and the levy as an industry start-up incentive to waste
recycling and remediation industries. This would provide far more than jobs, it
could be a real move in the right direction for Minister Groom's touted, 'Our
Big Green Goal,' rather than a toxic cell in a hole in the ground.
Nyrstar is an example of industry taking responsibility for
their own waste. They ship waste to SA for reprocessing, ending up with an
inert substance used for bricks. Without incentives business will be only too
pleased to transfer their hazardous waste to future ratepayers and not have the
responsibility of dealing with it.
Southern Waste Solutions, who for over three years have not
been able to raise the funds from the private sector, because they do not have
a viable business case, have been bailed out by Councils to the tune of
$1.9mil, only made a profit of $80,000 last year and have outstanding
liabilities of $4mil. They do not have one organization that has confirmed that
they will use the c cell. Only 10,000
tonnes of legacy waste across Tasmania has been identified in their report –
hardly the quantity to merit the cost of a 300,000 tonne C cell and much of
this waste could be remediated in-situ given the incentive to do so.
As for waste from Antarctica -does Tasmania really want to
accept waste from other Antarctic countries such as: Italy; China; and Russia;
to name just three of a long list. We do not need to tempt these countries to
Tasmania to be known as the Toxic Dump for Antarctica. This is also in
contravention of the core principles of the Basal Convention.
In the past our own Antarctic waste has been transported to
WA but in future there will be very little Australian Antarctic waste as it is
less impacting on the environment to remediate or seal it in situ. Since 2015
France’s solid and liquid waste has been completely used as waste to generate
energy.
Minister Groom why condemn Tasmania to another 10 – 20 years
of toxic landfill?
*MEDIA
RELEASE ENDS*
For further information, please contact Dump the Toxic
Dump: dumpthetoxicdump@gmail.com
