A growing stench for government of recycling and waste problem

Waste management is an issue the state government must confront sooner rather than later, writes Matt Johnston. It’s time for trash talking.

There are three big sleeper issues the Andrews Government must confront this year.

One of them — the cladding crisis — was partly dealt with last week, when Premier Daniel Andrews returned from leave to declare the state would fork out $600 million to rectify flammable material coating hundreds of apartment buildings.

While building standards won’t be fixed overnight, at least there is now a plan of attack for cladding.

The other two things coming to a head are a flaming cocktail of environment, jobs and money. They are waste management and native forest logging.

All three involve state and federal responsibilities, but given the interventionist approach Andrews has taken to policy so far, one imagines he would rather lead than be led. Logging remains a tricky subject for a party that prides itself on supporting blue collar jobs but also wants to play a bigger role in environmental protection.

Rubbish is a growing problem for the Victorian government.

I still think that the government intends to end native forest logging in Victoria and that it is now working out how to phase out the job-producing industry and try to protect country towns that have relied on its existence for decades.

That may be dealt with later in the year, as will the bulk of the government’s response to the recycling and waste issue.

The latter is the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, which ordinarily Labor would try to use to manufacture a response to the big issue. However, it may not have the luxury of so much time, because the inquiry is supposed to report back in November.

Struggling recycler SKM has already belled the cat on itself, with other companies chasing debts and warnings issued that 400,000 tonnes of recyclable material would be sent to landfill if the company falls over.

While there is some hope SKM will lock in a buyer to take over its operations, there are plenty of problems to solve in the broader wastebasket.

In Melbourne the red lid is for rubbish and the yellow lid for recycling.

Labor MP Cesar Melhem is chairing the parliamentary inquiry and told the Sunday Herald Sun that his government should step up to the plate as soon as possible to declare this whole mess an emergency and tackle it head-on.

Hitting out at everything from cucumbers wrapped in plastic to the way landfill is managed, Melhem effectively said rubbish should be declared an essential service in Victoria.

There’s a lot to unpack from the MP’s thoughts and the cost of some ideas might make some people baulk.

It’s interesting, however, that a senior Right-wing MP is sticking his neck out to call for such action.

When the government’s plastic bag ban hit the news a couple of years ago, several Right-wing Labor MPs said the last thing people in the outer suburbs wanted to hear is a ban on stuff that makes it easier for them to shop and would cost money to implement.

As a proud Caroline Springs resident and former state secretary of a blue-collar union, Melhem obviously disagrees or has had some sort of epiphany.

And hey, it’s hard to disagree that wrapping fruit and vegies in individual packaging is stupid.

More broadly, something needs to be done about re-using materials and recycling sorting in Australia.

Labor MP Cesar Melhem is chairing the parliamentary inquiry into waste and recycling.

I wasn’t aware until recently how much of a mess broken glass can make of recycling or how spoiled material sprouting maggots can lead to recyclable goods being rejected in other countries.

In theory this is where a container deposit scheme can kick in — although it wouldn’t solve things overnight. Victorian policymakers are watching how NSW and Queensland bed down their systems, which come in the wake of South Australia’s long-established system.

Does Victoria want to be the only east-coast state out of the loop on this?

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Perhaps the government could make former Liberal premier Denis Napthine its public advocate, given his strong support for the scheme in previous years.

More urgent is securing a long-term future for large-scale waste sorting and recycling.

The bottom line is that if people start to see their blue or yellow-lid bins left on the kerb or their contents dumped in landfill, the state government will start to wear some blame. No doubt contingencies are being considered, including the radical idea of public ownership — either at a local or state government level — of depots that can sort and treat recyclable material.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: David Crosling

It probably makes more sense than buying a timber mill while looking at ways to phase out native logging. This sort of government intervention is a long shot given the expense, but it could make the waste-to-energy plants being built or considered around the state much more viable.

When the government intervened to address the cladding crisis, it decided to provide a lot of money that would partly be paid for by a building permit levy. This government has used a levy to pay for taxi reforms, too.

How many levies is too many levies? Treasurer Tim Pallas and Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio are sure to be having some interesting conversations in the coming months.

Matt Johnston is state politics editor

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