A collection of the letters received by our newsroom from members of the community.
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Corporate garbage
As is usual for global corporations, FAQ sheets blurbs are produced by obscenely "compensated", air-conditioned skyscraper housed, international public relations specialists, whose only contact with garbage may have been passing a "waste" laden truck on the highway (Garbage proposal, QA, 5 February, p.1)!
Applying the term "waste" to what "garbage" trucks collect and transport is a nice play on words.
Somehow it lends a faint aromatic perfume of lavender to collections of materials which in reality are putrid, visually off-putting, emitting lethal, breath-stopping, methane.
"Garbage", to most people is an amalgam of everything thrown out by a wealthy, free-spending consumer society, not alone food but also complex materials containing toxic synthetic manufacturers, which on bio-degrading, risk contamination of Queanbeyan's environmentally pristine ground-water.
Councillor Taylor points up the anomaly that placing a toxic tip on Canberra Avenue while, contem-poraneously, spending $5 million on Queanbeyan's other entrance seems counterproductive.
As she, rightly, points up, it would undermine all Council's monetary investment in "one foul (sic) swoop"!
Were this project to go ahead Queanbeyan's motto "Country living, City benefits" slogan would be subject to legitimate challenge as difficult to sustain!
"Truck movements" of "84 per day in the initial stages", does not clarify if this is inward only or inclusive of return journeys.
Most road users appreciate garbage trucks are heavy, frequently dual control, unwieldy, visibility-impeding vehicles which present another additional potentially lethal traffic hazard.
Council would be advised to dump Suez Environmental garbage proposal in the waste bin!
- Albert M. White, Queanbeyan
Garbage proposal an opportunity for change
The front page story Friday, February 5, titled Garbage Proposal and the letter in the same issue do not reflect the actual circumstance facing Queanbeyan's management of waste.
Queanbeyan closed its last landfill in 1975 and since that time the price of the management of waste and recycling has been entirely controlled by external forces.
Queanbeyan's only current waste disposal options are to either Mugga in the ACT or to the old Woodlawn Mine site at Tarago.
Queanbeyan's kerbside recycling goes to the ACT at ever-increasing costs per tonne.
The NSW government is making a very concerted effort, through the EPA, to reduce waste to landfill and is in the midst of a $465 million program Waste Less - Recycle More through which it is providing financial support to councils to provide infrastructure to divert waste from landfill.
Governments want to reflect the environmental harm and cost of landfill through increasing costs and levies on waste. These will only rise.
Queanbeyan desperately needs to take control of its waste costs and it can do so with increased recycling.
The development proposal submitted by Wild Environment on behalf of waste company Suez is a real opportunity for change if the Queanbeyan community entered into a public-private partnership with Suez on waste diversion and recycling.
We could create many local jobs and with increased diversion and start to take control of spiralling negative waste costs.
As a resident of Queanbeyan and a member of the Zero Waste International Alliance (ZWIA) I have seen such partnerships develop around the world where the expenditure on waste management has become an investment in the future, creating jobs and diverting waste as resources into local business.
This development could be a real asset for this community if we grabbed it by both hands and did it well. I am more than happy to contribute my 30 years experience in the recycling and compost industries to see such a proposal succeed.
- Gerry Gillespie
Focusing on the positive
Councillor Cregan [is] one of those responsible for decisions such as knocking back the cinema, trying to overturn the river upgrade, flip-flopping on just about every Council decision this term, even those already voted on as part of the budget, and we're now supposed to listen to him again profess his concern, this time about Council mergers, a process he's obviously been a party to. And wait for it, finances/funding is one of the lines trotted out yet again. I heard Councillor Winchester phone in to 2CC and obviously he's trying to publicly back this horse too. Might be in the community's best interest if they spent less time attempting to push themselves into the limelight and trying to create concern and instead focus on actual positive outcomes like some other, far more experienced councillors do.
- Ryan Wilson, Queanbeyan
The Queanbeyan Age welcomes your views and opinions:
Send your letters to acting editor Kimberley Le Lievre at kimberley.lelievre@fairfaxmedia.com.au or deliver them to our office at 108 Monaro Street, Queanbeyan.
