Councils’ pox on the box

By Tania Martin
THE Shire of Yarra Ranges and Knox Council are calling for State and Federal Governments to take action on the number of televisions being dumped in landfill.
Both councils raised the issue at separate meetings last Tuesday 28 April, urging the government to make a ruling on the introduction of a national TV take-back scheme.
Yarra Ranges Lyster Ward councillor Samantha Dunn tabled a report before the council outlining the continued problem with televisions ending up at the tip instead of being recycled.
The report stated that an estimated 1.9 million televisions had entered Australia in the past 12 months and there was a total of more than 17 million sitting in landfill sites.
Cr Dunn said with analogue transmission set to finish at the end of 2013, the number of dumped televisions would continue to rise.
She said in 2006 the Australia Bureau of Statistics research revealed that e-waste (televisions, computers and other electrical equipment) was a ‘looming issue’.
Cr Dunn said during the recent hard-waste collections it had become apparent that it was a growing problem across the shire. “E-waste is also growing three times faster than general waste,” she said.
Cr Dunn said a 2007 VECCI research paper had also revealed that the cost of e-waste was growing into a $50 million per annum industry.
“The government needs to get serious about waste in landfill and introduce a national take-back scheme,” she said.
At Knox Council’s meeting Chandler Ward councillor John Mortimore said something needed to be done now to stop the flow of TVs ending up a the tip.
“With older analogue televisions soon to be redundant, a national scheme for the responsible disposal of television is essential,” he said
Knox’s engineering and infrastructure director Ian Bell said there was currently limited opportunity for recycling old televisions.
Both councils have also called for the government to introduce legislation to extend the responsibility to the manufacturers for the dumping of e-waste.
Councillors hope that a decision will be announced at a meeting of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) later this month.
A Federal Government spokesman Ben Pratt said the EPHC had agreed to develop a national policy at its November meeting.