Submissions
ASBG made two points, with the first being by far the main one:
In the Position Statement the term onsite was used often. However, the submission ASBG's Submission on the On-Site / Off-Site Rule - 2019 was prepared due to the differing meanings, positions and enforcement by the waste branch and the enforcement or inspector branch of the EPA. As the Position Statement relied very heavily on the interpretation of what is an onsite ‘waste’ material vs and offsite waste material. Putting it simply the onsite material is covered under the Contaminated Land Management and legislation, whereas offsite waste is covered under waste legislation which is far more stringent. ASBG again recommended that, as promised in 2019 and was promised that Guidelines would be produced by the EPA to clarify what is considered onsite and offsite, called the onsite/offsite rule.
The other issue was the level of expertise on asbestos risk management by certified contaminated land consultants. Most have if but a few don’t and may require additional expertise
 ASBG Submission on Asbestos Contaminated Soils | 845 kB |
ASBG's submission on the EPA's Climate Change Action Plan and Policy required clarification. Would the EPA rigorously stick with the NSW Net Zero targets regardless :
- Of the transition to a net zero end point, as a rough high cost path would cause financial difficulties on EPL holders within a competitive market?
- And ignore competitive products and their Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Intensity where EPLs are made less competitive or close enabling NSW to actually increase GHG globally?
- Also ignoring the likely price increases and supply unreliability associated with Eraring's closure in 2025?
Or work with NSW EPLs to assist and oversea their progress towards a low to zero GHG product intensity where competitive products are considered along with transitional difficulties NSW experiences in its electricity grid.
Obviously ASBG recommended that EPA consider these issue and work with, rather than against NSW EPL holders. Noting that as EPLs under NGERs etc are exempt from GHG EPL controls this largely leaves EPL holders who have product competition in the NSW market. In addition ASBG recommended:
- Duplication of GHG emissions, performance, future plans etc, be avoided with use of existing documentation over EPA variations.
- Use of EPL conditions to control GHG be limited to only those who are laggards - have no reasonable economic or technical excuse to reduce GHG.
- Load Based Licensing not be used to ensure NSW EPL's help NSW achieve its Net Zero targets, or other criteria
- Adaptation to deal with pollution incidents resulting from climate change bad weather events, be limited to ad-hoc changes to existing sites, and only use increased weather related design criteria (i.e. 1 in 100 yr rain events) if this applies across all new sites under the planning system.
| ASBG Submission on Climate Change Action Plan 2022 | 1196 kB |
ASBG is concerned the RIS grossly underestimates the costs to industry from going from Group 3 & 4 to Group 6 under the sunset arrangements. Costs by the EPA are out by at least a factor of 3 if not more. The costs to industry, in the RIS, also do not consider the impacts of the multiplier effect from industrial employment, where ASBG found data that indicates it is 7.36 times higher.
Additionally, the RIS lumps industry under the GMR, which misrepresents the area contributions of pollutants from industry. In contrast wood heaters are assessed using both the GMR and Sydney air sheds, but no further actions are proposed on wood heaters despite their major contribution to Sydney Particulate Matter pollution.
ASBG recommends the RIS be redone and the options reassessed based on real cost data from industry. It is likely that moving to Group 6 is simply too costly to undertake.
There are two technical errors in the draft Regulation:
• The definition of volatile organic liquid, which replaced “unless” with “and” erroneously changing the current definition.
• The set points for Pressure-vacuum vents at 15 kPa and -0.5 kPa, can be set higher than the tanks’ emergency vent release pressures. This conflicts with AS1940 set a design pressure level for atmospheric tanks as a maximum pressure.
| ASBG Submission on POEO Clean Air Regulation 2022 | 1433 kB |
This high level review of NSW Resource Recovery Frameworks covers a broad range of issues regarding the beneficial reuse of wastes. Key issues and recommendations include:
- Expand use of soil conditioners, for specific land areas, such as denuded farmland. All published RROEs can be applied anywhere in NSW, hence the most sensitive land is the trigger. Certain low risk materials have high concentrations of minerals which are currently replaced in farmland by fertilisers. By specifying land zones, such as denuded farmland, and having more specific delivery controls such an approach can help farmers and reduce waste to landfill.
- Specific use of scientific methodologies to set criteria which can vary according to land areas and their local environments. Some extracted materials come from high background areas and may breach their RROs even if going back into the same soil types.
- Publish the scientific methodologies with specific cases used to make RROEs. ASBG provides evidence of ALARA being used rather than good scientific methods and risk weighted approaches.
- Improve environmental protection by increased policing, teaming with landowners etc, use and support of industry based quality control methods and better forewarnings of emerging contaminants.
- Reform environment licensing and planning legislation to remove road blocks and assist emerging, new and innovative processes at pilot plant and small scale commercial demonstration plant scales
- Ensure the RRF is open to all technologies and process that can meet the scientific based environmental conditions and avoids picking ‘winners’.
- Implement the End of Waste provision for wastes, which meet risk criteria, to avoid the need for Waste Storage licences at post producers’ sites. It will also draw the line of when a RRO material is a waste or can be treated as a product, reducing EPA’s oversight.
- NSW EPA to adopt the standard AS 4964 for asbestos measurement.
- All methodologies used to make RROE criteria are transparent and based on good scientific methods, which should be ring-fenced from other influences, such as public or local opinion.
- NSW Waste Classification Guidelines to add in general fill material criteria, but where these limits can be subject to exemptions where specific RROEs are used for lower risk source materials.
- Improved sampling methods which are standardised—to remove sampling from RROs—but also accept demonstrated statistical methods.
Given the scope of the review there are many case studies and other supporting documents, member experiences and other details which are better conveyed on a case by case basis.
ASBG's submission welcomed most of the changes in the draft POEO (General) Regulation 2022. In particular the amendments to the Pollution Incident Response Management Plan testing which currently requires a test redo within 30 days of any pollution incident. This is to be changed to a Material Harm level pollution incident, a win for ASBG from our 2019 submission.
There were four issues with the draft Reg:
- The application fees for Chemical Storage, prescribed waste: ASBG considers the fee for Prescribed Waste Storage licence of $5,402 too high given its simplicity.
- Clarification on the changes to Extractive Industries: This change can capture unintended activities such as site rehabilitation and needs clarifying.
- Clarification on waste storage: Clarification on how the 5t threshold works as well as removing the capture of RRO materials sent to other processing sites, such as concrete and asphalt plants
- Changes to the National Pollution Inventory: EPA to source its quality data for Cat 2 fuels from NGERs using the new Inter-governmental Agreement on data. EPA to develop new emissions estimation techniques with industry input and connection for use by all jurisdictions.
| ASBG's Submission on the Draft POEO (General) Regulation 2022 | 905 kB |
