The ACT Greens have had a win in their battle against government plans to process the territory’s rubbish using a giant machine dubbed the ”dirty MRF”.
The crossbench party is opposed to the use of the materials recovery facility and instead want to issue ACT households with green bins, after the population is ”re-educated” in how to sort its domestic waste.
In the Legislative Assembly yesterday, the Greens won the backing of the ACT Liberals for a motion opposing the use of a residual materials recovery facility - known in the industry as a ”dirty MRF” - for processing organic waste.
The technology sorts green waste and other recyclables from rubbish that has been thrown in household bins and will be sent to landfill.
The Greens oppose the use of residual MRFs in the ACT because they say the technology produces a low-quality compost that is potentially contaminated with glass, or materials such as battery fluid.
Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur successfully moved that no funding be committed to a residual MRF ”at this stage” and that the government should instead educate ACT households on separating organic materials from other waste.
The motion also leaves the door open to the introduction of a third bin for organics in the ACT if there is not ”a significant reduction in organic waste as a result of the education program”.
The Greens won support in the Assembly after they agreed to acknowledge a green waste bin was a long-standing policy of the Canberra Liberals. Ms Le Couteur said the compost produced from a residual MRF was ”something that no gardener or farmer will want to use on their soil”.
But Environment Minister Simon Corbell said a residual MRF would recover ”over 80 per cent of household organics as well as other materials that have been incorrectly binned”.
A spokesman for Mr Corbell said the government had no plans for a residual MRF until at least 2015, when the commercial MRF would be in place.
