Drivers need to turn mobiles off

A SUGGESTION to the young woman in a black car with the personalised number plates – try turning your phone off and that way you should be able to concentrate on your driving.

Had I not moved well over to the right at the Toowoomba Christian College you would have side-swiped me.

Obviously it was an important call as you were still on the phone while pulled up at the lights on Highfields Rd around 3.45 on Tuesday afternoon.

JOHN MARSH, Cabarlah

WASTE LEVY

THE Palaszczuk Government can reassure Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce CEO Jo Sheppard (10/04/ 2018) and the people of Toowoomba that we are working in-step with business and stakeholders to develop a waste strategy and stop trucks dumping NSW waste in Queensland.

Together we can help Queensland become a national leader in reducing the amount of waste that is dumped in landfill.

AROUND 5.5 MILLION TONNES OF RUBBISH IS BURIED IN THE GROUND IN QUEENSLAND EACH YEAR AND THE AMOUNT THAT IS COMING IN FROM NSW IS INCREASING.

In conjunction with stakeholders including the LGAQ, CCIQ and the Master Builders Association Queensland, the government is developing a statewide waste management strategy.

We established a Stakeholder Advisory Group to develop a strategy and a framework to implement Justice Peter Lyons’s recommendation to establish a waste levy in Queensland.

This recommendation came from Justice Lyons’s independent investigation into the transport of interstate waste in Queensland.

Importantly, the Palaszczuk Government has made a commitment that there will be no direct impact on Queensland households from a waste levy.

Around 5.5 million tonnes of rubbish is buried in the ground in Queensland each year and the amount that is coming in from NSW is increasing.

We need to drastically reduce that. We need a strategy that will generate real change in how we, as a state, manage waste and generate new innovative, economic opportunities.

In 2012, the LNP scrapped the previous Queensland waste levy, making our state a dumping ground for others and robbing us of the opportunity to invest in recycling.

Since then a staggering 2.3 million tonnes has been trucked over our borders.

That has to stop and we are working with stakeholders to position Queensland for the future. LEEANNE ENOCH, Minister for Environment

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