Measures, Committee, to reduce hazardous waste landfill

The Victorian Government has announced measures to reduce hazardous waste going to landfill by 50% over the next ten years.

Hazardous waste comes not only from industry, but from everyday products such as paint for homes, batteries for tools and hildren's toys, by-products from dry cleaning and the oil from cars.

Currently, this waste goes to special landfill sites, such as Tullamarine and Lyndhurst, but these will eventually be filled.

The key elements of the strategy include:

• A levy of $10 per tonne on hazardous waste currently going to landfill to encourage industry to innovate and find alternatives to landfill.
• Boosting existing cleaner production programs to help industry adopt low waste technologies and management systems that, in most cases, pay for themselves.
• Carrying out a one-off free collection of excess de-registered rural chemicals that threaten Victoria's clean and green food image.
• Encouraging the waste-management industry to invest in new technologies to treat prescribed wastes, including soil remediation.
• Introducing legislation and regulation to encourage re-use, recycling and energy recovery from hazardous wastes.

The Government has also established a Consultative Bipartisan Committee to undertake a review over the next six months.

The Committee, comprising representatives from the community, industry, the trade union movement and scientific and government agencies, will advise the Government on an integrated approach to managing hazardous waste, including landfill siting.

The Committee will be chaired by the Hon Geoff Coleman. Other members will include:

The Government's industrial waste strategy "Zeroing in on Waste" is built on the principles of environmental stewardship, waste avoidance through cleaner production, re-use and recycling of wastes, recovery of energy where wastes cannot be avoided, and the responsible management of all residual waste streams.

The Minister for Conservation and Land Management, Marie Tehan, said that Victoria has in place a sophisticated system of controls for hazardous waste. However, the Government also recognised that Victoria cannot eliminate all these wastes overnight.

"For at least the next ten years there will be a need for some properly engineered landfill capacity for hazardous wastes. At the moment, Victoria is generating about 600,000 tonnes of waste per year," the Minister said.

(New Release, Office of the Minister for Conservation and Land Management, February 3,1999)