Page 1716 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2016
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waste management and resource recovery technology, and shifting markets for recyclables.
The waste management strategy and the Auditor-General’s report indicated a need for a more effective management and regulation of waste to meet our changing needs and expectations. Challenges to the ACT’s ability to meet waste reduction and resource recovery targets are evident in a number of areas, in particular: stockpiling of waste hoppers and waste materials, such as timber, tyres and mixed waste, is difficult to control under current legislation, and can create environmental, fire and health risks; approximately 30,000 tonnes per annum of general waste is taken from the ACT to the Woodlawn treatment facility in New South Wales, beyond the regulatory reach of the ACT; there is only a limited power to give directions about waste activities. For example, directing that waste be taken to a particular facility can only be done in emergency situations.
To examine and address these challenges, the ACT waste feasibility study was established in August 2015. The study addresses the need for a comprehensive approach to waste management reform. The study’s program is wideranging, and is reviewing all aspects of the processes and services relating to waste, recycling and reuse. It is revising baseline waste data to establish a new benchmark for waste measurement and reporting and will include a comprehensive analysis of various options for improving resource recovery in the ACT.
The waste feasibility study is the most extensive and thorough review of waste-related activities in recent years and will assist in procuring infrastructure and establishing frameworks, programs and systems to enable the ACT to meet the resource recovery targets in the waste management strategy.
For those reforms to be implemented there must first be an effective, simple statutory framework for managing waste activity; not replicating or encroaching on the environment protection role of the EPA, but providing a comprehensive set of regulatory tools for guiding behaviour within industry and the broader community. That is why this legislation will require members of the waste industry to provide waste activity data to government agencies so that quantities, types and destination of waste can be better understood. This bill has been drafted to avoid some of the complexity of legislation in larger states, the objective being to have a light touch regulatory framework for waste management.
Madam Speaker, this bill establishes a structure for managing waste activity. It then incorporates a suite of regulatory tools commonly found in this type of legislation. The waste manager will have power to issue directions in some circumstances. Operators of landfill, recycling or storage facilities will be required to hold a licence under this legislation. Businesses that collect and transport waste for reward will not have to be licensed, but they will need to be registered.
The processes for licensing and registering operators will be kept as simple and inexpensive as possible. A person’s licence or registration may be cancelled or suspended for breach of the act. This will help minimise the involvement of unscrupulous operators. Waste facility operators and transporters will be required to provide regular reports to the government about their waste activities.
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