Foreword

The New South Wales Government has a policy objective to reduce greenhouse gases.

Minimising, reusing and recycling waste material are important activities for reducing the consumption of natural resources and energy, and the generation of greenhouse gases.

The NSW Government has an important role to play in encouraging the public sector, industry and the community to minimise, reuse and recycle waste. The NSW public sector is also a large consumer of products and a significant generator of waste.

In 1997, the NSW Government introduced the Waste Reduction and Purchasing Policy (WRAPP). This policy applies to all of its agencies and aims to reduce waste and increase recycling and reuse.

This audit examines what has been achieved since WRAPP was introduced, and how well it has been implemented.

It highlighted to me that we can all do more to increase recycling and reuse.

For our part, the Audit Office looked more closely at printing and found the quality and cost of recycled content paper is now very close to virgin paper.

I have therefore decided to print this and future reports on paper with recycled content.

I encourage other agencies to have another look at their practices to see if they too can do more to increase recycling and reuse.

Peter Achterstraat

Auditor-General

June 2008