ASBG Articles
The NSW EPA has written to ASBG informing of a raft of changes to the POEO Act, Contaminated Land Management Act and Regulation and the Radiation Control Act. The more significant change is the replacement of Voluntary Management Plans with Management Agreements for contaminated land remediation. See pdf below.
 EPA Amendments to Environmental Protection Legislation | 248 kB |
Attached is the Proposed Risk Based Environmental Regulatory Framework Under The Protection Of The Environment Operations Act 1997.
This document follows ASBG’s submissions to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) and in line with ASBG’s ASBG’s Ideas for Improving NSW’s Environmental Framework calling for such changes for Environment Protection Licences (EPL). The Framework includes the use of a risk based approach to set monitoring and inspection frequencies. ASBG is working with the EPA to develop this framework.
 EPA's Risk Based Framework for EPLs | 38 kB |
Attached is the response from Queensland's Department of Environment and Heritage Protection on ASBG request for clarification of the Government's policy on their waste levy. It appears from the letter that Queensland's levy will be scrapped, bu they will be monitoring the transport of wastes and their origins.
| QLD Waste Levy Position Letter 2012 | 359 kB |
ASBG was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald a few weeks ago about the impact of waste levies on interstate boarders. Andrew Doig was quoted:
Others argue this ''perverse incentive'' to travel north could be felt as far south as Sydney when NSW's metropolitan levy rises to more than $95 a tonne next month.
Australian Sustainable Business Group's national director, Andrew Doig, said at this point gate fees would begin to outweigh the transport cost of trucking waste north ''and NSW would lose not only the waste levy but it would also lose the GST associated with it''
| SMH - No Qld Levy - 12 June 2012 | 132 kB |
ASBG has undertaken a comparison of Queensland's new hazardous waste classification limits and compared them to NSW and Victorian limits. Queensland's recent Waste Reduction and Recycling Regulation 2011 introduced these new limits to set its $50/t and $150/t waste levies for low and high hazardous wastes. This is somewhat different to NSW and Victorian classifications which also set landfill acceptance limits. Queensland's landfill acceptance limits are licence specific and vary from each landfill.
In brief the Queensland limits average about 5 times tighter than those used in NSW and Victoria. Other states use even less stringent criteria, easily making Queensland Australia's tightest hazardous waste classification system.
Please click on the below link to download the full pdf file in this comparison document.
| ASBG's Comparison of QLD vs NSW & Vic haz waste classifications | 103 kB |
