2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan released
Infrastructure Australia has published its 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan, calling for a new wave of infrastructure reform to fully leverage the Australian Government’s historic $110 billion infrastructure spend and drive the national COVID-19 recovery.
The 2021 Plan provides Australia’s infrastructure sector with a 15-year roadmap to drive economic growth, maintain and enhance our standard of living and improve the resilience and sustainability of our essential infrastructure.
National Waste and Recycling Industry Council (NWRIC) CEO Rose Read welcomed the plan’s release.
“As outlined in the Reform Priority List, the Plan has a focus on waste and enabling a circular economy. This includes two key recommendations relevant to the waste and resource recovery sector that NWRIC has long supported.
“The first recommendation is to ‘avoid waste, improve resource recovery and build demand and markets for recycled products by integrating the circular economy in national waste policy and infrastructure projects’.
“The second recommendation is to ‘encourage market development through government and industry partnerships to accelerate and extend the implementation of the National Waste Policy’s data actions and bring national consistency to the household collection and landfill levy system.
“NWRIC has long been advocating for priority to be given to government procurement of recycled materials and implement policy reforms that make secondary raw materials more cost effective than virgin materials. We also want to see more extended producer schemes implemented that reward better designed, more durable and recyclable products and packaging which will then help deliver a truly circular economy.
“NWRIC is supportive of a national standard for data and reporting in the waste and resource recovery sector. At present there are different definitions, classifications, scopes, procedures, and timeframes operating which creates complexities and uncertainty in collating key information on waste, such as the National Waste Report.
“We must look to harmonise Australia’s household kerbside collection across the states and territories as well as the landfill levies so that there’s not only greater separation of waste that leads to cleaner inputs, but increased investment back into the resource recovery sector,” Ms Read said.
Changes to waste tyre export rules- have your say
The laws around waste tyre exports are changing, with the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE) developing Waste Tyre Export Rules to underpin the waste tyre export ban commencing on 1 December 2021.
DAWE has advised that from this time, waste tyre exporters will require an export licence.
The Exposure Draft Waste Tyre Rules for consultation do not allow certain types of waste tyres to be exported from 1 December 2021. These include:
• Whole casings that are exported to be reused overseas;
• Whole passenger and SUV casings that are exported to be re-tread overseas;
• Whole truck tyres that are re-tread in Australia before being exported; and
• Off The Road (OTR) tyres, which may be cut into large pieces before being exported for recycling offshore.
During initial consultation with industry, feedback has been provided that there may be legitimate export markets for these kinds of waste tyres and a discussion paper has been released with a series of questions to help gather more information from industry about these export markets. The proposed consultation will also determine whether any changes to the Exposure Draft of the Waste Tyre Rules are needed.
DAWE has developed a short survey on the draft Waste Tyre Export Rules which will help the Department understand the impact and inform the final rules that regulate waste tyre exports.
Submissions close at 5pm on 24 September 2021.