Australia's Toxic Legacy Viewed as Commercial Opportunity

ADELAIDE, Australia, November 23, 2004 (ENS) - A national partnership of researchers, environmental agencies and industry is calling for a comprehensive cleanup of toxics left from Australia's past development. The group envisions developing a new Australian industry based on cleanup and the creation of a safe, healthy environment.

There is plenty to clean up. Australia has an estimated 100,000 contaminated sites in addition to tens of thousands of livestock dips and places where persistent pesticides were used for decades.

The new partnership is the brainchild of two professors - Ravi Naidu of the University of South Australia's Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation and Paul Perkins the Australian National University with the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies.

Ravi Naidu of the University of South Australia's Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (Photo courtesy UNISA)

Australia has yet to develop affordable solutions to the most serious contamination problems, said Naidu, formerly chief research scientist in the Land and Water Division of CSIRO, the Australian government's research arm.

"Nor have we developed the preventative technologies and regulatory frameworks that will stop this problem becoming even greater and more pervasive," Naidu said.

The core group sees cleanup of Australia's toxic legacy as an opportunity to develop skills that Australians can then sell to other countries.

A generation of young Australians skilled at solving and preventing the problems of contamination will be created, and in the process Australia will begin to enjoy an enhanced natural environment, as well as cleaner, safer food and water supplies and residential conditions.

In addition, the visionaries say, there will be a reduction in the implicit toll of chronic degenerative disease among Australians attributable to toxic contamination of the biosphere.

Paul Perkins is currently an adjunct professor at the Australian National University in the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. (Photo courtesy ACTEW)

"Asia has an estimated three to five million contaminated sites, and probably a great many more," Perkins wrote in an opinion piece in the "Canberra Times" on September 15. "By cleaning up our own backyard first, we position ourselves to be the technology and know-how suppliers to the region and the world. So clean-up not only spells health and well being, it also spells jobs, exports and prosperity."

Perkins has hands-on experience dealing with contamination issues. Until May 2003 he was the CEO of ACTEW Corporation, a Canberra multi-utility with a focus on sustainability in water and energy utility services. He is a past chairman of Environment Business Australia, and a member of the federal government’s Business Roundtable on Sustainable Development.

He is chairman of the Barton Group, the national CEO alliance responsible for leading implementation by Australian Industry of the recommendations of the Environment Industry Action Agenda.

His vision and that of Naidu is in parallel with the stated goals of the Environment Industry Action Agenda launched by the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources and the Minister for Environment and Heritage in September 2001.

The industry’s agreed vision is “to add value to all Australian business by enabling competitive environmental outcomes, and in the process build an environment industry with annual sales exceeding $40 billion by 2011."

Perkins says that nobody knows how many contaminated sites there are in Australia. "Blood tests have shown that almost every one of us - including infants - can carry a lifelong cargo of persistent organochlorines and heavy metals. These go with us into the cemetery, then re-mobilize in the groundwater. We are ourselves contaminated sites," he wrote in the Times.

Polluted stormwater run-off shows up on the shore of Sydney Harbour. Litter, sediment, organic matter, weeds, nutrients, oils, grease and pesticides can impact the health of waterways and beaches, and have a negative effect on water quality and aquatic biodiversity. (Photo courtesy Mosman Municipal Council)

Naidu says environmental cleanup is a sound investment for the future that will pay "handsome dividends" through the development of a new export industry in environmental risk assessment and cleanup technology and expertise.

The proposed organization combines industry, landholders, regulators, state and federal government departments, research organizations, investors, consultants, small and medium businesses, and international organizations.

Their voices are beginning to be heard. Experts from round the world gathered in Adelaide September 13 to 18 to consider ways to assess the risks posed by contaminated sites to human health and the environment. Hosted by Naidu and the University of South Australia, two conferences were held that week - the 3rd global workshop on Chemical Bioavailability in the Terrestrial Environment and another on contaminated site remediation.

The meetings attracted scientists from North America, the UK, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, NZ, the Asia region and Australia.

"CRC CARE is an independent vehicle for addressing the complex issues of contamination by bringing together participants who are typically adversaries in other parts of the world," Naidu says. "It adopts a characteristically Australian approach of partnership, rather than conflict."