Waste
Bans, Priority Product Statements & Product Stewardship!
The current
Government formally resolved to respond to repeal the waste levy, to take
effect 1 July 2012. On 10 April 2012 they
made good on the election commitment to abolish the former Government’s waste
levy.
ASBG wrote to
the QLD Government to clarify their intentions with the changes to the waste
legislation. In response, Tony Roberts,
Assistant Director-General, Natural Resources and Environment, Department of
Environment and Heritage Protection (DEHP) provided ASBG with a letter
stating:
This levy will not be replaced and programs that
may have been funded by this levy have been suspended.
ASBG in its
correspondence also warned that discontinuation of the levy will make it
economically attractive to send wastes from Sydney and the Hunter regions to
south east Queensland in a about year.
Mr Roberts
responded:
Your concerns in relation to the interstate waste
coming into Queensland are noted. Although
the levy will be repealed, provisions of the Act relating to waste disposal and
recycling reporting at landfills will be retained. Information that waste disposal sites will
still be required to provide includes the amount and type of waste and where it
came from. This gives the department the
ability to monitor interstate waste movements
It is clear levy
will not be replaced and programs that may have been funded by the levy have
been suspended. However, many aspects of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011 have been
adopted by the current Qld Government. When
the levy is repealed on the 1 July 2012, the provisions of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011 relating
to waste disposal & recycling data reporting at landfills will be
retained.
Under s152-153 reporting
entities includes landfills and recycling activities as defined under the Waste
Reduction and Recycling Regulation 2011.
Such entities must provide an
annual report on among other things, waste types and amounts collected and as
described under the regulations. Failure
to provide a report is $10,000 maximum fine.
There appears no penalty for false or misleading data or reporting. ASBG has considerable issues with the ability
of the DEHP to police and be able to demonstrate miss-representation of the origin
of waste arriving at landfills. Such
monitoring appears to rely on the honesty of the waste deliverers. If there is commercial interest the
reliability of such information will be questionable.
Minister Andrew
Powell intends to explore these policy options more fully and develop suitable
approaches in consultation with stakeholders.
Provisions of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011 allow for the introduction
of disposal bans, which is also referred to in Mr Roberts response. Under the
existing legislation, the Minister may regulate waste for the purposes of a
disposal ban, but only after considering all of the following:
· Whether prohibition
on the disposal of the waste is the most effective point of intervention in the
life cycle of the waste;
· Whether there
are viable existing or potential collection systems & markets for any benefit that may be obtained from not
disposing of the waste;
· Whether the
costs of monitoring, enforcement & market
development are proportional to the benefits;
· Whether voluntary
or other measures for the avoidance of disposal have been shown not to be
effective;
· Whether a
prohibition on disposal is required to support an accredited product
stewardship scheme, a regulated product stewardship scheme or an approved
program.
The Minister may
also recommend regulation that identifies waste for the preparation of a
priority product statement and the use of product stewardship arrangements, to
shift the obligation onto waste generators to reduce waste.
However, a ban
will not stop wastes crossing the border.
Free trade between states and territories is a cornerstone of the
Australia Constitution. As such a ban must
only cover a specific waste type, but cannot discriminate from where that waste
came from within Australia, otherwise it would be unconstitutional.
By ASBG’s
reckoning once an economic trigger has been reached transport of wastes from
the high levy areas in NSW will head north.
As it seems from this letter the $35/t for non-municipal wastes will no
longer apply, then control of the issue shifts to the NSW Government. This may well end up capping the NSW levy, as
NSW Treasury will lose revenue if they set the levy rate too high. The NSW Government is currently reviewing the
Waste and Environment Levy and it will be interesting if they find such an
outcome and recommend a maximum cap on levy rates for various levied areas in
NSW.
On the other
hand the Queensland Government is cutting the cost of waste disposal by
removing the levy. This will not only
affect standard commercial wastes, it will also reduce the costs for regulated
high and regulated low “hazard” wastes.
ASBG has always had issues with the application of the $150/t and $50/t
levy rates for these wastes. In fact if
they had stayed in place such wastes would have had considerable economic
incentive to send such wastes across to NSW and pay the northern NSW levy rate.
The loser out of
all this levy process will be the environment.
Transporting wastes long distances is a perverse outcome from waste
levies purported to improve the environment, where in this case the reverse
will occur. That is unless either NSW or
Queensland changes its waste levy position.
