Youth Parliament
Year 10 student, Rhea Werner, along with six other members of the Boroondara Youth Team took a momentous step forward in addressing the rising concerns around e-waste disposal when their Effective e-Waste Management Bill 2022 was passed by the YMCA Victoria Youth Parliament.
The Bill makes the following recommendations:
- Centralised e-Waste management service
- New protocols for government departments to effectively recycle e-waste
- Tracking of e-waste products
- Public education to reduce e-waste
Rhea and the Team presented their Bill in the Victorian Parliamentary Chamber on 30 June, with Council officers in attendance. The Bill was passed by the Youth Parliament and approved by the Youth Governor. The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning is now utilising the Effective E-Waste Management Bill 2022 to inform its policy thinking on e-waste.
“Over the course of this year, I was fortunate to have had the amazing opportunity to be able to represent young people’s environmental action in the Victorian Youth Parliament. Through this initiative we were able to deduce that climate change – a global issue – was afflicting the broader community in a multitude of ways, but one way we could create tangible change was through ensuring the effective e-Waste Recycling of electronic products,” explains Rhea.
Year 10, Rhea Werner
“Every year in Australia, over 88% of laptops and electronic devices end up in landfill, which not only have negative environmental impacts but furthermore interconnected social impacts. We consulted government and community stakeholders in order to identify and highlight the current and potential future strategies that should be implemented in order to ensure that Victoria and Australia’s e-Waste scheme becomes sustainable and incorporate these into legislative change.
“The major avenue we identified was through a progressive tax-rebate scheme, in which large-scale companies and entities, such as schools, could receive rebates based on their electronic usage and disposal plans. We were recently informed that the Minister for Energy, on behalf of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, is dedicating $16.5 million to include our policy into current reforms on e-Waste, as part of a larger $515 million investment to transform and reform Victoria’s waste and recycling industry.”
“This government recognition goes to show the power of young people’s voices, and I am so grateful to St Catherine’s for nurturing this leadership and advocacy, which spans outside of the classroom and school environment, and is able to tangibly impact not only Victoria, but Australian policy,” Rhea shares.
The YMCA Youth Parliament is a program that provides a platform to young adults to share their views on issues relevant to them at the highest levels of the Victorian Government. They also receive training in public speaking and leadership as they research topics they are passionate about.
E-Waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams and has both valuable and hazardous components. In July 2019, the Victorian Government banned all e-waste items from being disposed of in landfill to protect the environment and recover more previous resources.
To find out more on how to sustainably dispose of e-waste click here.
