Industry urges national clean-up

In the lead-up to the federal election, Australian industry is calling for priority action to clean up the nation's legacy of past industrial contamination, to enhance the nation's "˜clean green' export image.

A survey of leading executives and research managers from the mining, manufacturing, petrochemical, energy and engineering industries has revealed near-unanimous support for a national effort to assess and clean up Australia's old contaminated sites.

The survey, carried out by Market Attitude Research Services for CRC CARE, found 42% of industry executives interviewed rated this task as important, while 56% said it was very important, a total of 98%.

A total of 96% also said clean-up was important or very important to the future of our industries and their exports.

However, many executives also emphasised the need for sound science, proper risk assessment and cost-effective clean-up methods. A number consider it is important to prioritise by targeting Australia's most polluted sites first.

Other issues raised by respondents to the survey included:

• A need for consistent and uniform national standards and regulation on contamination and clean-up
• Concerns about companies being made liable and forced to shoulder the costs of cleaning up past contamination which is not their fault
• A perception that contamination clean-up is a low priority with most governments
• A need to better inform the Australian public about contamination and clean-up issues, to avoid overreactions by parts of the community, the media and environmentalists
• A need for governments to act more firmly and consistently in making polluters responsible for cleaning up their contamination
• Need for great awareness in industry of the economic gains and other benefits to be had from clean-up
• Need for greater awareness in industry of new techniques to prevent contamination happening in the first place

"The overwhelming support for Australia cleaning up its contaminated sites and preventing future contamination shown in this survey reveals the high priority industry now attaches to our reputation as a clean, green export nation," said CRC CARE managing director Professor Ravi Naidu.

"Some companies are still apprehensive about the costs of clean-up — but they may be unclear about the economic gains that flow from it. For example, effective site assessment and remediation can add tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars in capital value to urban land, as we have seen at Homebush Bay and other sites. In that respect alone, clean-up can be an excellent investment.

"Second, using the new risk assessment techniques, you don't always have to use expensive methods to clean up a contaminated site. If the chemicals in it do not affect human health or the environment, then the cost may be minimal — and the value of the site will still rise as a result of the assessment.

"Third, at CRC CARE we are pioneering a range of low-cost and novel clean-up techniques which are far less costly than the traditional dig up and cart away, which really only shifted the problem elsewhere.

"And fourth, we are working with industries to analyse their waste streams and identify opportunities to divert what was once treated as contaminated waste into safe and economically valuable end uses."