Hazardous Waste in Australia: Issues and Potential Improvements

Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
KEY ISSUES.............................................................................................................................................4
Regulatory Framework 85%...............................................................................................................4
Managing the chemicals that are hazardous....................................................................................5
Training..................................................................................................................................................5
Adequacy of Data on Waste Management and Recycling.................................................................5
Disposal Standards............................................................................................................................5
The Basel Convention:...................................................................................................................5
Legal provisions:............................................................................................................................6
Improvement Programme Method.......................................................................................................6
Motivations of Improving......................................................................................................................6
Potential areas of Improvement............................................................................................................7
Quality and Issue Analysis: Hazardous waste in Australia.....................................................................7
Local government data..........................................................................................................................7
Agreed Improvements...........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................8
Bibliography.........................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Hazardous Waste in Australia was commissioned by the Australian Government Department
of the environment and energy (energy.gov.au, 2017). Every year a report is submitted to
the Australian Government containing the amount of waste generated in the country.
This data provides a baseline and this is an informative approach towards Australia’s
progress with efforts to better manage the waste of the country.
Hazardous waste is said to arise when it causes demand for processing, storage, treatment
or disposal infrastructure (Randell, 2017).
In the year 2014-15 it was observed that 5.6 million tonnes of waste that was hazardous was
produced by Australia which was approximately nine percent of the total waste
accumulated during that period. The waste accumulated is further classified into different
types i.e (White & Heckenberg, 2011).
 Contaminated soil and Tremolite from development and demolition projects
 Mining waste such as from coal mines etc
 Waste from chemicals and heavy manufacturing industry
 Lead containing waste, acid batteries
 Grease trap waste
 Obsolete computer equipment
Hazardous waste in Australia is sent to three different sub markets and focus is on different
wastes with distinct scales. 94% of the waste accumulated is managed by a framework
located within the state/territory, 5% crosses interstate borders and 1% is
exported/imported overseas (Ascend Waste and Environment, 2017).
This report explores the various problems that surrounds measuring the scale of the
hazardous waste in Australia. There are number of ways to measure the problem, from the
volume of waste generated through to different types of hazardous wastes. There are
various factors that are being considered in this report that are related to measurement and
includes the following:

 The problem that is related to the terms of volume and the waste that is being used
for some beneficial purposes (White R. , 2017)
 Various movements taking place in Australia and its various surroundings
 The scale of the problem that includes the municipal , national and state level
 The waste that is being generated in the extractive sectors and resources industries
 The waste streams that are not included in the waste streams as for example the
radioactives
Hazardous waste is having upward trends from the last five years. The problem persists in
Australia because of infrastructure, technology, regulatory or shortcomings in the market
economy.
The amount of Hazardous waste is growing at a faster pace than population growth rate.
New wastes generated from coal mines, acid batteries are the main cause of hazardous
waste (Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2004).
Australia has 100 licensed sites to store its low and intermediate waste. Lower level of
waste includes:
 Contaminated soil
 Glassware and protective clothing
 Paper
 Plastic
Example of the waste included at the intermediate level are as follows:
 Waste released from the making of radiopharmaceuticals
 The Waste that the reprocessing generates (Fazzo & seta, 2017)
Waste Generation by Stream is listed in the Table below for the year 2014-15:
Source: Australia National Waste Report 2016