Ms Louise Byrne:

This is national bio-economy week. I am sure everybody knew that. There is significant potential for much better utilisation of fruit and vegetable waste, for instance, mushroom stalks, carrot tops and so on, and to transform it into higher value component products, such as bioplastic or bioactive compounds that can be used in animal and human diets. This is the principle of the cascading effect whereby we are making these waste streams valuable. That is an important avenue that we should not forget.

On the Senator's greenhouse gas question, we will follow up in writing. My understanding is that the food waste is not captured in the agricultural emissions figures. We all want to reduce food waste. I have outlined potential avenues for doing so. We want to grow the sector. We want to grow the economic value of the sector and the number of people employed. That will create more product. We definitely do not want to reduce the amount of fruit and vegetable waste that we have. Under the climate action plan, we have a target of 1 TWh by 2025. That will largely be met by food waste.