$70,000 allocated to Household Hazardous Waste Co-operative Group

24/12/98

The Household Hazardous Waste Co-operative Group will receive $70,000 to collect household hazardous waste stockpiled at nine municipal collection depots in the metropolitan area.

Environment Minister Cheryl Edwardes today announced grants of nearly $1 million for 35 projects from the Waste Management and Recycling Fund.

Western Australia's first environmental fund is financed by a landfill levy which came into force on July 1 this year, and is used to sponsor innovative recycling and waste reduction projects throughout the State.

In the past, materials on poisons collection days or deposited at municipal household hazardous waste collection depots has often been stockpiled. There has been no co-ordination of recycling or disposal.

Household hazardous wastes include chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, solvents, acids, pool and cleaning chemicals which could potentially be damaging to people's health or the environment.

While the bulk of unwanted materials are normal domestic chemicals, some materials left at depots are exceedingly hazardous.

For waste requiring complex chemical analysis, there will need to be some experimentation to determine the appropriate techniques to render it safe and allow reuse and recycling.

The Household Hazardous Waste Cooperative Group, with its $70,000 grant, will be able to collect all stockpiled wastes, dispose of them by recycling, reduction, destruction and disposal elsewhere, other than landfill.

This project will be the first in WA to audit and quantify a large array of wastes and provide quantitative information on the nature and costs. This information is important for planning more extensive and ongoing strategies for the greater metropolitan areas and country regions.

The Minister said strategies to remove household hazardous waste from the domestic waste stream was essential to remove contaminants and to permit a more sophisticated recycling approach to household waste.

Mrs Edwardes congratulated the successful applicants who will share in $915,316 of Waste Management and Recycling Fund grants. This round of grants brings the total amount of funding provided this year to nearly $1million.

"Each year, an expected $4 million raised from the levy will provide financial assistance to local communities, industry and local government with new and innovative ideas on reducing or recycling all types of waste," she said.

"I believe this fund is an incentive to Western Australians who are dedicated to recycling and waste reduction. It will help provide the impetus to reduce the State's waste by half.

"The quality of the applications received by the Advisory Council on Waste Management supports this. Generally grants are made on a dollar-for-dollar basis."

The Advisory Council selected 35 successful grant applicants in the following six categories:  

·      waste classification and information;

·      regional recycling;

·      cleaner production and industrial waste reduction;

·      recycling and waste processing industry development;

·      public education and promotion ; and -

·      State co-ordination of local government recycling and waste reduction.

An additional category, municipal recycling services, will be included in the 1999 funding grants. This will provide a performance-based incentive to support local government kerbside collection systems.

The levy applies to landfill sites in the Perth metropolitan area and is costed at $3 per tonne for domestic and commercial waste going to putrescible landfill and $1 per tonne for inert waste from the building and construction industry going to inert landfill. It is paid by all those who generate waste and use landfill sites.

Grant applications are invited every six months. The next grant round will be advertised on January 9, and will be open for a six-week application period. Application forms and details are available from the DEP by telephoning (08) 9476 7407.

Media contact: Nicole Trigwell 9421 7777