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Professor Jim Falk is Climate Change Director for the Association of Pacific Rim Universities World Institute and Director of the Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society at the University of Melbourne

“The government concedes that it is a moral responsibility to house the nuclear wastes we produce. However, prior attempts to store even the ‘intermediate’ nuclear wastes envisaged in this proposal have constantly been stymied by local refusal. Were a commercial nuclear industry to be attempted in Australia, the housing of the resultant high level nuclear wastes would be likely to raise much tougher, and quite probably insurmountable opposition.”

Dr Gerald Laurence is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Adelaide University and Radiation Safety Consultant to Adelaide University and Flinders University.

“It has taken a long time, nearly twenty years to reach this. That said, this is wonderful news. Presumably the Government is anticipating there will not be further impediments around issues of transport access to the site. In the US for instance there was the case when an agreement like this was reached with the indigenous people in Utah but the state governor and state legislature decided to prevent anything being transported on the Utah roads. The NT government and Chief Minister does not seem to be altogether happy with the decision, using the word “stoush” to describe a possible engagement with the Commonwealth. Obstacles can still occur and it is sad that headlines described the waste being ‘dumped’ in the NT, when in fact it will be carefully controlled and higher level waste will have to be held in a purpose built facility.

The Muckaty Station site is quite a reasonable site, although it is a while since it was first proposed. I remember thinking at the time that it is quite a reasonable site. It is great news.

One of the other issues that must be addressed is whether this is going to be used for commonwealth waste only. The ministerial statement implied that it could involve non-Commonwealth waste but we need to see the details we would hope it will be extended to materials in all states and territories. Even on this issue there is grounds for optimism as if there is a site already in Australia there is likely to be more opposition to creating further sites.

Until we see the details of the Bill I remain cautiously optimistic.”

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Dr Paul Harrison is the Senior Lecturer for Marketing at the Deakin Business School, Deakin University

On marketing’s role in the overconsumption of food:

“One of the biggest contributors to obesity and environmental degradation in the past 40 years has been the increasing sophistication of all facets of marketing to create an environment where highly processed and energy dense food is easily available to those living in developed countries. Although lifestyles have become more sedentary over this time, it is a fact that consumers have been encouraged through highly sophisticated marketing activities, including supply chain management (access to food), pricing (reduced costs and longer perishability of processed foods), as well as advertising, to purchase (and consume) foods that may provide a high fat, high sugar, and high salt “hit”.

While these foods give an instant reward, overconsumption has a cost to both the environment, and to individual health. The findings of Kevin Hall and his colleagues at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in the US and published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, do not come as a surprise.

However, the fact that they have been able to calculate the actual dimensions of the effect of food waste and energy dense food consumed by Americans means that politicians need to do more than blame consumers, telling them to “eat less” and “exercise more” and start to recognise that not all consumption is good for the economy.

Marketers themselves also need to recognise that their activities have an effect far beyond simply selling products. My research into how consumers make choices suggests that highly processed and packaged foods have a similar “push” effect when consumers shop. For example, although a 625 gram block of cheese is presented as “good value”, the consumer may well be buying (and consuming) 125 grams more cheese than they had planned, regardless of the discount for buying in bulk.”

Professor David Kemp is the Chair of Farming Systems for Agricultural and Wine Sciences at Charles Sturt University

On farming’s role in the waste of food:

“The issue of food waste is clearly important in an over-populated world where >1b people do not get enough to eat, while those in the more developed world have the luxury of choice. This topic has been studied for some time. I think some archaeologists in Arizona came up with interesting estimates of the detail of household waste years ago. That is a major limitation in the PLoS paper as it is about modelling the energy balance. Energy is clearly the primary requirement for any plant or animal, but then often protein and other nutrients are required such that some of the apparent ‘waste’ could be from people seeking those additional sources. This work needs to be extended to find out what the ‘waste’ actually comprises so that useful solutions can then be identified. Are the problems from too many cabbages being grown, potatoes or…? At what stage from production to consumption is most ‘waste’ occurring?

It is a pity this team did not include any agricultural scientists – a declining group of experts – as there is a further question about what ‘waste’ is unavoidable. Any home gardener who grows vegetables invariably throws away food that could have been eaten, because surpluses are too big to handle eg zucchinis, or it was picked too late and started to rot, etc. Agriculture is characterised by seasonal production cycles and cannot be regulated like a factory to just deliver only what is absolutely needed. The real waste is between that proportion that is somewhat unavoidable and that which consumers throw away – after taking into account that some foods are used for other nutrients than energy. There are probably many inefficiencies in the food distribution system. In this paper the ‘waste’ is clearly post farm-gate and hence agriculture is less likely to be the culprit.

I was surprised that agriculture seems to get the blame and medicine once again is pure. For as long as I can remember there has been the plea for medicine to do more about prevention than cure. The obesity debate is clearly in that camp with millions being spent on finding diet pills etc, but much less on working with people, suppliers and food producers to resolve these large problems. Medicine is about finding magic bullets and making millions, rather than taking a system approach and resolving better practices.

This study was done in the USA and it would be dangerous to extrapolate to anywhere else. USA agriculture is renowned for having greater inputs and lower levels of efficiency than would apply in Australia. USA farmers are very effective at delivering to their markets, but that is not the same as efficiency.

This study needs a better understanding of how markets work, and their limitations. Farmers are paid in the main by a wholesaler who estimates how much they want and at what price. There is only a small part of that which considers ‘waste’. The wholesaler thinks they can sell all they buy. This touches on the larger problem that market signals are an imperfect mechanism for covering all the costs of any activity. Consumers are not willing to pay the true environmental costs of production and hence others in the marketing chain adjust accordingly. Farmers simply aim to make a profit based on the information they have available to them.

Markets are never perfect but the problem of obesity is much greater than simply suggesting agriculture is to blame, when current medical strategies have obviously failed. Most farmers would want to eliminate waste but the present system has a long way to go before waste can be minimal.”

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Professor John Buckeridge is Head of the School of Civil, Environmental & Chemical Engineering at RMIT University, Melbourne.

“The concern for me is when the slick reaches the areas of high biodiversity along the shorelines and it’s there that there is greatest likely impact – on marine invertebrates in the shallow zone and on birds, it is also a breeding ground for many species. That is where the corals are, it is where a lot of the algae are, it is an area where filter feeders in particular can get clogged up with oil and organics. One of the rather interesting things that a lot of people forget is that the nature of these hydrocarbons is very complex, there are alkanes and alkenes many of which will have an effect on the metabolism, lifecycles and reproduction of some of these organisms. We are animals which function on chemistry and they are chemicals that can cause things to happen at the wrong time.

It is very light grade crude and it is evaporating quickly so hopefully slicks won’t reach the shore. If it evaporates or dissipates before it reaches the shore then it is less of a problem.”

BRIEFING DETAILS:
DATE: Thursday 21 May 2009
START TIME: 11.10am AEST
DURATION: 30 min
VENUE: Online

Hear from experts about the growing problem of e waste as environment ministers meet to consider a national e waste recycling scheme at the Environmental Protection and Heritage Council meeting in Hobart on Friday.

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415 or email us

SPEAKERS:

Dr Sunil Herat - Senior Lecturer in Waste Management and Head of E-waste Research Group, Griffith University – What is e waste?

Jan van de Graaff - Project Manager, Sustainability Victoria – Byteback : a pilot program in e waste recycling

Professor Chris Winder - Professor in Applied Toxicology, University of New South Wales – The toxic hazards of e waste

PRESENTATIONS:

Full Briefing (WebEx):
View here

Sunil Herat’s Presentation:
Listen (mp3)

Jan Van de Graaff’s Presentation:
Listen (mp3)

Chris Winder’s Presentation:
Listen (mp3)

Q & A Session:
Listen (mp3)

BRIEFING DETAILS:
DATE: Thursday 26 June 2008
START TIME: 10am AEST
VENUE: online
DURATION: 40 minutes

Join this briefing to hear from leading experts in the field of radiation safety prior to the release of these site evaluations. Issues discussed included:

•  What is the scale of the problem?
• What makes a site suitable for a nuclear waste dump?
• Is there a ‘scientifically’ ideal location?
• What is the difference between a repository, a store and a dump?
• Is this just a stop gap measure? 

SPEAKERS:

 Professor Peter Johnston – Applied Physics, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Peter is a member of the Radiation Heath and Safety Advisory Committee and the Nuclear Safety Committee (both established under the ARPANS Act). Peter was part of the Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review (UMPNER) and is the Senior Scientific Adviser to the traditional owners of the former nuclear weapons test sites at Maralinga and Emu, South Australia. Peter has also provided advice to traditional landowners about the consequences of the National Radioactive Waste Repository.

Dr Gerald Laurence – Visiting Lecturer at Adelaide University and Radiation Safety Consultant to Adelaide University and Flinders University. Gerald was a member of the Australian Ionizing Radiation Council from 1990-95 and is a member of the South Australian Radiation Protection Committee. Gerald was part of the National Store Advisory Committee, an independent, expert committee which advised the government on locating a storage facility for long-lived intermediate level radioactive waste in 2001.

PRESENTATIONS:

Full Briefing (WebEx):
View here

Peter Johnston’s Presentation:
View PowerPoint (pdf) | Listen (mp3)

Gerald Laurence’s Presentation:
View PowerPoint (pdf) | Listen (mp3)

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415 or email us.