2016-05-30
My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. The current Victorian Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan, which covers the next three decades to 2044, does not include a plan for hazardous or toxic waste. South Eastern Metropolitan Region is home to Victoria's only hazardous waste deposit, the Lyndhurst toxic waste dump. It is located in one of metropolitan Melbourne's growth corridors, within walking distance of schools, kindergartens, childcare centres and thousands of residents' homes. Men and women work every day in factories that border the Lyndhurst dump's boundary. If it did not already exist, a toxic waste dump would not be allowed to be built at the current site. Its proximity to local residents means that it would not comply with the siting requirements for a new facility.
I understand that the Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan indicates that the Lyndhurst dump should be closed by 2030.
But with no actual statewide plan for hazardous and toxic waste, local residents are justifiably concerned that this date might be seen as a mere guideline rather than a rule. In the meantime residents are concerned about the effects of a toxic waste facility that is so close to where they live and work.
Victorians have petitioned the Victorian Parliament to develop a statewide strategy to manage hazardous waste and to produce a prescribed industrial waste management policy that would cease to rely on the Lyndhurst dump. The most recent petition was tabled on 15 October 2014. The Greater Dandenong City Council supports the Lyndhurst dump's earliest closure as well as the development of a proper statewide policy to manage hazardous waste. I note that the federal member for Isaacs has also called for the closure of the Lyndhurst dump and the development of a statewide strategy.
My request is that the minister oversee the development, as a matter of priority, a statewide strategy for the management of toxic waste that does not involve the continued reliance on a facility in the middle of a growth corridor of metropolitan Melbourne. (30 days to respond)