samantha in the media

Vic councils probe developer donations and bad candidate conduct
Government News
By Julian Bajkowski
25 Jun 2013

Replas Environmental Centre
visit from Cr Samantha Dunn
11 Jun 2013

in the press - recycled water for yarra valley

Pipeline plan to aid farms
Yarra Ranges Journal
by Gilbert Gardiner
17 Aug 2010

recycled water for the valley

report from the roundtable – 10 aug

Council had to consider a report on the Business Case for Recycled Water Pipeline for Agriculture in the Yarra Valley.

It is an important advocacy issue for council. Yarra Ranges upholds and protects the Green Wedge as the food bowl of Melbourne and a prime driver of our local economy. We know as a council that water shortages will be more frequent as the effects of climate change continue to change local weather patterns and rainfall.

We need to start thinking about water security for our farmers now before the situation becomes dire. The business case focuses on recycled water supply from the Brushy Creek/Lilydale Sewerage Treatment Plants to supply growers in the Yarra Valley region.

The environmental benefits are enormous, not to mention the economic benefits. The project would deliver enormous flow on effects for the regional service economy as well as reductions in nutrient flows to the Olinda Creek, Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay.

It is a terrific project, makes good sense, all we need is government to take up the mantle and see it happen for farmers in Yarra Ranges.

e-waste recycling gets closer

Good news on e-waste! A national e-waste recycling scheme was given the go ahead at last week's meeting of the Environmental Heritage Protection Council, made up of Environment Ministers from across the country.

This is a very positive step forward in managing e-waste in Australia. Electronic waste is growing at three times the rate of general waste, filling landfill sites across the country, with the added potential of causing contamination at these sites.

A national e-waste recycling system will see the creation of substantial green jobs in the waste management sector and has been conservatively estimated to be worth $50million per year.

Recycling e-waste has many benefits, recycling would remove heavy metals from landfill sites and also enable the recovery of some of the more scarce materials that go into the make up of electronic equipment.

It's great to see the that the EHPC are listening to the community and to industry, both have a high level of support for electronic recycling, now the important thing is to get the best recycling scheme we can for electronic waste.

tv takeback reborn

Environment Victoria and the Total Environment Centre have launched a new website, Reborn, in their campaign for a national e-waste recycling scheme. In April Environment Victoria contacted me to support a TV Take Back (e-waste) recycling scheme. There are many benefits and I was pleased to move a motion for Yarra Ranges to support the campaign (see blog) which was supported unanimously.

.
If we are genuine about moving towards a zero waste society we must move quickly to implement a national e-waste recycling scheme. E-waste is growing at three times the rate of general waste even though there is a significant market opportunity for recycling old TVs. A recent study by VECCI conservatively indicated that the e-waste recycling market was worth around $50million per annum.

Recycling old TVs would be of great benefit by removing heavy metals from our landfill sites and recycling would also enable recovery of some of the more scarce materials that go into the make up of televisions.

As part of the campaign, a sticker has been produced so concerned citizens can make their mark by plastering them on e-waste piled up on countless nature strips throughout Melbourne waiting for hard rubbish collection. The sticker is to raise awareness about Reborn and to highlight that e-waste could be recycled. If you'd like some stickers email your address to: oldtv@envict.org.au.
.
What else can you do to help? Write to the federal Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett and the state Minister too, Gavin Jennings to tell them you support a national e-waste recycling sytem and they should too.

Want to know more? click below for more info

report from the roundtable – 24 mar

There were a couple of key issues up for discussion at this week’s council meeting.

The first, Carbon Management Program – Forward Plan was about the where to from here with council’s Climate Change Commitment. Back in March 2007 (see blog) council ratified a program of actions as a response to climate change. The actions put Yarra Ranges at the forefront of local government action on climate change and saw Yarra Ranges achieve carbon neutrality from 2007/08 onwards.

From my perspective I was greatly disappointed to see that the report before council was recommending an option (2) that would see the end of carbon neutrality for Yarra Ranges. Even more disappointing was the change back to consumption of coal fired, dirty power, rather than investment in the renewable, clean energy sector.

The report contained references to the lack of action on the part of the Shire in relation to reducing energy consumption across the organisation and using offsetting by the purchase of renewable energy certificates with the original Climate Change Commitment.

However if energy reduction activities did not happen it is a failure of the organisation to fulfil the Climate Change Commitment in totality. It was always the intent of the Climate Change Commitment to address the reduction of energy consumption with one of the key goals being “Maintaining carbon neutrality through progressively reducing consumption and reducing our reliance on offsetting emissions”.

The report went on to blame regulation by state and federal government as a reason to justify the turnaround in relation to carbon neutrality, but on the same hand considered the planting of 60,000 plants okay even though that doesn’t meet auditing protocols for offsetting.

Unfortunately I cannot reconcile the term “sustainable carbon management” used in the report with the purchase of coal fired power, this seems at odds to me.

I am more than happy for the organisation to focus on cost effective opportunities to reduce energy consumption, however with the majority of council supporting option 2 we have turned our back on achieving all of our Climate Change Commitments, a commitment we were all very proud of back in 2007.

I tried very hard to advocate for Option 3 which would mean council met all of its Climate Change Commitments, but to no avail.

It is very clear that the cost of inaction is far greater that the costs to adapt to and mitigate climate change. This message has been repeated to us time and time again by eminent people across the world.

What do we say to our children and their children when they ask what we did about climate change? This decision is not one to be proud of, we turned our back on renewable energy and we turned our back on real action on climate change.

Resolved on the motion of Crs Avery and Cliff
That:
1. The proposal to allocate the annual Climate Change Commitment budget of
$790,000 in part to the annual Ribbons of Green program (for planting 60,000 plants per annum) with the balance directed to funding energy reduction measures to meet Council’s target of reducing corporate greenhouse gas emission levels by 30% on 2000 levels by 2010 be endorsed.
2. The proposal to return the cost saving associated with the energy reduction measures to fund additional energy reduction measures be endorsed in principle.
3. An annual status report be prepared for Council consideration on the implementation of the above program.
A division was called:
For: Crs Cliff, McRae, Templer, Avery, Higgins, Warren, Heenan and Cox
Against: Cr Dunn

On a brighter note, the item covering Public Place Recycling was far more positive.

The Shire has been undertaking a pilot program to ascertain the quantity of recyclable materials in bins in public parks, reserves and streets. This is something I have certainly pushed for throughout public places in my ward. Initial results indicated that there was a substantial amount of recyclable material available in the bins. The pilot program revealed that of 88 tonnes of waste material collected over 10 weeks 50% of it was able to be recovered for recycling.


From now on all recyclables put into the Shire's public bins will be recycled. This PET bottle was once destined for landfill, from now on it will be recycled, a great outcome for the environment.

The challenge will be educating the community that the recyclables they throw into our public bins will be recycled because under this system separate rubbish bins will not be required. In the past this recyclable material had gone to landfill but now it will be recycled.

I was very pleased to move the motion to support the shire wide implementation of a program to recover recyclable materials from all of our public bins. The environmental benefits are huge and will assist in minimising waste of reusable products, diverting products from landfill so they can be reused and recycled, minimising the need for raw materials (as there’s more recyclables in the system) and moving toward a zero waste society (per the intent of the State Government’s 2005 strategy “Towards Zero Waste”).

Resolved on the motion of Crs Dunn and Heenan
That:
1. The proposal for implementation of a Shirewide Public Place Recycling Program with the existing infrastructure and collection arrangements to be endorsed.
2. Formal quotations for a three year contract for the sorting of material be obtained.
3. The sum of $5,000 for ongoing maintenance and management associated with the implementation of the Public Place Recycling Program be referred for inclusion in the 2009-10 budget.
note: this motion was unanimously supported by councillors

more haste on waste

Today I spoke at the Inquiry into the Management of Australia's Waste Streams held by the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and Arts. The Inquiry is seeking feedback on a number of issues including the introduction of Container Deposit Legislation (CDL).

The Shire of Yarra Ranges was invited to submit at the hearing following on from our written submission to the senate committee. I have pursued the issue of CDL for some time which I’m pleased to say resulted in council supporting CDL at a meeting earlier this year.
.

During the 30 minute submission I outlined the basis for council supporting the introduction of CDL. I also highlighted to the Senators the importance of a mandatory approach to a broad based container/packaging recovery scheme. I went on to talk about Vision 2020, the community and council's shared vision for Yarra Ranges and how the move to a zero waste society was one of the aspirations of the Yarra Ranges community. The Senators were very interested and asked many questions to gain a local government perspective.

Senators showed a great interest in data Yarra Ranges presented on waste to landfill, particularly latest data showing 15% of recyclable material still ends up as landfill. Of this 58% is plastics, glass, steel and aluminium, the rest being newspaper and paper based products. We clearly have more work to do to achieve 100% return rate on recyclables.

Introduction of national container deposit legislation is well overdue, experience in South Australia is clear, their recycling rates for PET bottles, glass and cans far exceed the national rates. I will continue to advocate for CDL, a National Packaging Covenant that’s mandatory and Extended Producer Responsibility, all of which would run in parallel with current council kerbside recycling services.

I have no doubt a legislated, mandatory broad based packaging and recovery scheme would reduce unsightly and dangerous litter in our environment. At the same time increasing recycling will save both energy and raw materials used in the production of packaging. There are many positive benefits to the community, the environment, government and industry.