CONTAINERS FOR CHANGE
706. Mr P. LILBURNE to the Minister for Environment:
I
refer to the McGowan Labor government's efforts to reduce the amount of
waste going to landfill, including through its container deposit scheme.
(1) Can the
minister please update the house on how this scheme has saved a greater number
of plastic containers from ending up in landfill?
(2) Can the
minister outline to the house how this scheme has supported community
organisations throughout Western Australia, as well as help create more jobs
across this state?
Ms A.
SANDERSON replied:
(1)–(2) I
thank the member for Carine for the question. Containers for Change is a program
that the government is incredibly proud of. I want to acknowledge the member
for Victoria Park for her participation, with Western Australia Return Recycle
Renew Ltd, in helping with the lift-off of Containers for Change. It lifted off
in October last year, so it is just over a year old. It is hard to believe that
it has been running for only 12 months as it is so well embedded and accepted
in the community and has such a high utilisation rate. The lift-off was not easy. There was a lot of uncertainty around
COVID and getting all the refund points online at the same time in the
right places and ready to go. With the uncertainty of COVID shutdowns, it was a
huge challenge and really well delivered by the team at WARRRL, the state
government and those refund point operators. It has been an outstanding
success.
We set out to build the most
accessible, most community focused and most successful deposit scheme in
Australia. After 12 months, we have certainly done that. We have 253 refund
points. They range from Kalumburu in the north to Esperance in the south. We
have exceeded the minimum of 229 refund points, which is the minimum network
standard. Whether people are in Coral Bay, Laverton or Pemberton, they will
have somewhere to take their containers. By September this year, over 765 million
containers have been collected. In 12 months alone, we have lifted the
recycling rate of containers by 20 per cent. That is a huge amount. It has gone from 34 per cent recycling to about 53 per
cent. That is a massive achievement.
Mr W.J. Johnston: Well done.
Ms A. SANDERSON: Yes, it is
really well done by those really passionate operators of the refund points.
It is a scheme that has incredible
social benefits as well. It is not just a recycling scheme. I think that means
it will be embedded in our community for a long time to come. It has created
over 730 jobs, and 41 per cent of those jobs are filled by people who live with
disabilities, the long-term unemployed and Aboriginal communities. The real
success story of this scheme is how well it has been taken up in the regions.
In fact, the regional success has outstripped the metropolitan refund points.
That is an outstanding achievement for the regions.
We have had $2.5 million distributed
to 4 233 community groups. That is a significant amount of funding. We attended
the 12-monthly awards for Containers for Change a couple of weeks ago. We saw
how it is really giving meaningful work to many people who would not have work
otherwise. It is giving them purpose and structure, which they would not have
had. It has been such a well received and well supported scheme. We are very
proud of this scheme and we are very hopeful and optimistic. We have an 85 per
cent target to reach in a few years. It is very ambitious but we are very
optimistic that we can get there.
The SPEAKER: The Deputy
Leader of the Opposition with the last question.