Colleen Hartland MLC - My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Environment and Climate Change. The South West Environment Action Group, based in Warrnambool, is presenting a week of recycling action for National Recycling Week this week. Tomorrow it will be hosting a recycling day on Civic Green in Warrnambool from 11.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. South West Environment Action Group is a small, non-funded, community-based organisation with a dozen or so active members. It has become a link between the agricultural community, councils, corporations and government-funded agricultural groups.

The recycling day on Civic Green will highlight the problem of recycling in the agricultural sector and offer helpful suggestions to farmers, amidst a week of other activities.

Silage wrap waste is a huge recycling problem in the western district. Almost 4000 tonnes is produced every year, but due to contamination with organic matter and the type of plastic used in the wrap only 20 per cent of all plastic silage wrap taken to recyclers is recycled into more plastic. The rest goes to landfill or is disposed of on farms, being either buried or burnt on site, producing toxic air pollution and carbon emissions. The farmers do this due to the extra work involved in cleaning and baling the wrap and the large cost of trucking it to the recycling depots.

Dairy Australia and WestVic Dairy will be at the event. They will be joined by award-winning cashmere farmer Brian Antony, who will demonstrate the way he uses an old converted wool press to bale his used silage wrap. Many of these old wool presses lie unused on farms around the country.

Tapex, the company that produces silage wrap, will have information on its recycling initiative, Plasback, which operates in New Zealand and some parts of Australia. The government should be initiating action by way of legislation, research and financial assistance to farmers and recyclers. I congratulate the South West Environment Action Group for its initiative and commend the recycling day on Civic Green. I call on the minister to take action to bring about 100 per cent recycling of silage wrap.