Friday, June 26, 2009

E-WASTE - improving recycling in Glen Eira

E-Waste , electronic waste that includes such items as computers and TVs is becoming an ever increasing problem across all municipalities. With the digital age coming many more thousands of items in Glen Eira will continue to be collected as hard rubbish, ending up in landfill.

The issue of e-waste going in to landfill is not just the concern about toxins leaching into the ground and ultimately the water table or the amount of space e-waste occupies. Research shows that using recycled materials (plastic, metals, etc) produces up to 80% less carbon emissions than processing virgin materials.

Several of our surrounding councils do recycle their e-waste and I feel Glen Eira should too. I understand there are a number of ways of doing this but the preferable one is to separate ewaste on collection , store and engage a commercial recycler to collect. What is collected is broken and separated down so that at least 95% of the ewaste is recycled.

I will be requesting a presentation be given to council in the next few weeks from an organisation like Sustainability Victoria that will inform and educate on the latest developments and costings on this issue. Hopefully this will lead council to support an ewaste recycling scheme

8 comments:

  1. Great idea, its about time Glen Eira joined the rest of the world. I have motored all the way to the city of Boroondara to drop off a collection of dumped computer monitors I collected off the surround streets. Glen Eira could at least pull it own weight for once. Almost every street I travel through in Glen Eira has computer monitors or other electrical items dumped on the strip. An recycling alternative would be a relief all round.

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  2. To add weight to your argument Neil, here are some statistics from the "Community Indicators' government project which states: "25% of household waste collected in kerbside collections in Glen Eira was recycled in 2005-06, compared to the Victorian State average kerbside recycling rate of 40%". Other Councils are cited as: Kingston (50%); Bayside (50%); Port Phillip (34%); Stonnington (38%)

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  3. Can we have the annual hard rubbish collection back too Neil?

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  4. On tomorrow night's agenda there is an item regarding the application for a grant and the total expenditure of $280,000 for the creation of a bike path WHICH ALREADY EXISTS. Yes, it requires some maintenance, but certainly not the mooted 280,000. This issue highlights the extravagance of this council and the sheer waste of ratepayers and government monies. There are countless examples of: repaving that does not need repaving; shoddy workmanship that only necessitates repeated attempts to fix the problem, and countless other inefficiencies. At a time when money is short, we do not need to spend fortunes on already existing facilities. This money should be poured into essentials such as fixing drains, watering dying trees, and road management signs. I resent the continual erosion of services in order that useless 'works' be carried out. Waste and inefficiency is something we simply can't afford.

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  5. Why would anyone want the annual hard rubbish collection back, when as of the June 30th, it will be on request. You can't get better service than that, but it will come at a cost! Pg 3 of the Draft Budget shows recycling and waste management cost $830K, with a further education bill budgeted at $140K....$1 million dollars for servicing 123,000 people's waste!

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  6. The new "on request" will not be substantially different from the current system. The only difference is that you don't have to wait for the week the pickups happen in your area. But it still depends on the resident making the booking.

    Some years ago a former CEO admitted to me that the current system was introduced because it is much cheaper than running an annual collection - not because it was more effective in collecting waste. And it is only cheaper because not many people use it compared to an annual collection.
    If we are actually serious about recycling we have to make it as convenient as possible for users.

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  7. Neil, e-waste includes low energy globes, which are more toxic than the old style incandescent globes. Do you know who collects those and fluro's? Any Council sites?

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  8. thanks anom , sorry for the slow reply .The DETOX YOUR HOME web page (search on this) has details of permanent collection facilities which are all outside GE.

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