Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I did not have quite as cultured a weekend as Mr Bayley, but I did go along to a very interesting event. I rise to draw attention to actions being taken in Bass to reduce landfill and to help people live more sustainably and in ways that care for the earth. The event that I went to on the weekend was the Repair Cafe Launceston. This Repair Cafe is a fairly new, free, sustainable community event that has been running for three months in Launceston. It is coordinated by the City of Launceston in partnership with Circular North and is supported through the Tasmanian Waste and Resource Recovery Board.
It happens on the third Saturday of every month, and while it is coordinated by the council, volunteers run it, with people from the community who have skills across a range of areas able to provide repairs for people across multiple products and objects. They volunteer and come along on the Saturday, and they also have a qualified electrician, which is handy. Anybody in the community can bring along their item that might be broken or worn and have it repaired, or attempted to be repaired, at the Repair Cafe. Basic textiles can be mended; hiking, camping and biking equipment, small electronics and basic furniture can be repaired; and knives and tools can be sharpened. There are a whole range of things that can be repaired there, and I am pleased to report that my extension lead has a new lease on life after taking that along to the Repair Cafe.
Anyone can drop into the cafe in Pilgrim Hall between 1.00 and 4.00 p.m. on the third Saturday of the month, have a cuppa – because it is a cafe – and participate in the repair of their items. Every item is weighed, and a tally is kept on the amount of waste saved from landfill, which is added to the global tally of items saved from landfill. The inaugural event saw 40 items brought along to the cafe, with 25 fully repaired. Nine were half repaired, or advice was given and people were able to fix them themselves. Last weekend 25 items were repaired. That is reducing landfill in action.
There are other things happening in Bass that do a similar job. The Redress Hub opened in 2022, with the aim of keeping clothing and textiles in use for longer by reusing them, repairing them, remaking them and reselling them as well. Redress Hub say that the textile and clothing industry is the second biggest polluter after oil, accounting for 10 per cent of global carbon emissions. Half a million tonnes of clothing end up in landfill in Australia every year.
People can head along to the Redress Hub’s workshops where they can be taught how to repair or remake clothing – simple things like sewing on buttons or hemming, or remaking whole items of clothing from different textiles that have been donated or saved from landfill. They also hold ‘sewials’ – that is spelt ‘sew-ial’ [‘social’] – and they have a similar repair cafe where people can take along their items and repair them together and learn. That also creates community. They sell products; they have clothing swaps where you can take an item of clothing in and pay a small fee to swap for an item that is in there; and there is also hire of donated evening gowns. There are other things that happen out of the Redress Hub too. It is a great place for doing clothing differently.
I would also like to draw attention to a small takeaway in Launceston called Small Grain. They use returner bowls. The idea of the returner bowls is that for a small initial charge, you can get your takeaway provided in a stainless-steel bowl – very delicious takeaway, I have to say. The next time you go and order food from there, you take your bowl back and swap it over each time. It is a simple way to reduce those plastic takeaway containers and move away from single‑use plastic.
These are just some of the sustainable waste‑reducing activities happening in Launceston and Bass. Each is contributing positively to reducing our waste, which is a very important measure. Tasmanians, about half a million of us, produce roughly half a million tonnes of waste a year. If you do the maths, that is 924 kilograms of landfill per person – I rounded up figures before, which is why it is 924 kilos of landfill per person per year in Tasmania.
We know in Launceston that the current landfill will be filled by 2050, so waste is a significant issue that we need to find solutions for.
Thank you to the Repair Cafe, Launceston, the Redress Hub and Small Grain. I am sure there are other businesses in Launceston and in Bass doing great things in this space. Thank you to all of them for the part they are playing in helping Bass residents to reduce their waste.
