Farrer MP Sussan Ley is hoping to see Albury's lead in recycling kitchen food waste being replicated across the nation.
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In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, the federal environment minister said her hometown had embraced the concept of kitchen and food scraps being turned into a resource to directly improve the health of soils.
"The amount of food Australia wastes each year is simply staggering, on average we throw one in five shopping bags of food in the bin," she said,
"That's about $3800 per household a year.
"I am pursuing an agenda to get all states and territories on board along with local councils to drive that same outcome in cities."
Ms Ley is also turning up the heat on the solar power industry to come up with a plan to recycle old panels to avoid a "landfill nightmare" in the future.
"I am announcing today that I am putting the solar panel industry on notice with clear timelines for action," she said.
"The uptake of millions of solar panels across the country from roof tops to solar farms has been vital from an emissions perspective but the explosion of retailers and importers in the area, and the lack of an industry wide approach to collection and recycling, means that it also looms as a landfill nightmare.
"We can't fix one environmental issue by creating another."
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Border solar panel retailer Bobbi McKibbin said her industry welcomed the direction from Ms Ley and government.
"We are an industry that is meant to be doing good for the environment," she said.
"There are a handful of companies working towards recycling solar panels.
"Australia's first one to be commissioned and working is Lotus Energy in Melbourne and I will be touring their facility as soon as COVID restrictions allow."
Ms Ley also revealed during her speech she was one of the more trolled politicians on social media, but acknowledged some of the vitriol she encounters came with the territory.
"No violins needed. It doesn't worry me in the slightest, but it does help to highlight some of the outrage element," she said.
"In between getting hit by both sides of the environmental debate, either as a koala killer on one hand, or a 'traitor to the cause' who handed the Bathurst motor race to so called 'fake' aboriginals on the other, I spend a lot of time with farmers, land managers, indigenous groups, and community volunteers.
"I also spend a considerable amount of my time working with the very same environmental organisations whose professional PR campaigns often take aim against the government."
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