Australian state considers levy on landfilled materials

The government of the Australian state of Queensland is considering an AUD$70 ($51.70) per metric ton landfill fee on municipal solid waste (MSW) and C&D materials, in part to steer materials toward recycling facilities.

An online report from the South Melbourne, Australia, publication Quarry indicates the levy is scheduled to take effect in early 2019.

The news report summarizes potential impacts on the C&D market for the levy, but the comprehensive nature of the fee on MSW and commercial waste markets is spelled out in a 46-page report posted to the Queensland government’s website.

That report refers to Queensland, in Australia’s northeast quadrant, as “a major under performer in resource recovery by both national and international standards” at an estimated 2016-2017 landfill diversion rate of 44.5 percent.

The report reviews the state’s prior history of having an AUD$35 ($25.86) per metric ton levy (on commercially generated materials taken to landfill) for a period of about seven months earlier this decade before it was repealed.

The proposed new levy would charge AUD$70 for commercial waste as well as MSW and C&D materials that are taken to a landfill in much of Queensland. The report’s authors indicate this will remove an incentive from waste generators in a neighboring state to avoid their own fee by shipping waste to Queensland.

The government says it intends to combine the landfill disincentive with incentives to “enhance economic development opportunities led by building advanced [recycling] processing and technology capacity [with] investment in key regional areas.”

The report proposes “product stewardship approaches [as] a means for the generators of the products that end up as waste to take responsibility for what happens to those products at the end of their useful life.”