ELEANOR HALL: Waste disposal companies are going to great lengths to avoid paying the higher costs associated with waste disposal in coastal regions of New South Wales.
Waste industry executives say hundreds if not thousands of tonnes of household garbage are being transported by road to south-east Queensland each year.
The New South Wales Government increased the dumping costs in its state in an effort to protect the environment.
But the long distance dumping uses more fuel and puts more trucks on the Pacific Highway, as Brendan Trembath reports.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Some of Sydney's garbage is taking a long road trip. It's transported more than 800 kilometres to south-east Queensland, where dumping costs are cheaper.
Tony Khoury is executive director of the Waste Contractors and Recyclers Association of New South Wales.
TONY KHOURY: We're starting to see hundreds if not thousands of tonnes a week being transported from Sydney to south-east Queensland, and that is an unintended consequence of the fact that we have a high levy, they have no levy in Queensland, and it's not a good thing for our roads, it's not a good thing for our environment.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: The New South Wales Government did have the environment in mind when it introduced the levy.
Known as the Waste and Environment Levy it's supposed to minimise the amount of waste being dumped and encourage recycling.
Tony Khoury is calling on state governments to come up with a compromise.
TONY KHOURY: Governments in New South Wales and Queensland need to fix this. This is a problem for the governments to fix.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: But isn't it free enterprise, where you look for the cheapest place to dump your rubbish. If you're a householder you might go to a waste disposal centre that's way out of town because you know the fees are lower.
TONY KHOURY: It's a problem that's created by government Brendan. The government here has created a waste levy of $95.20 per tonne, it's increasing by $10 plus CPI every year. When the waste levy in Sydney was $70 per tonne, there was no talk of waste going to Queensland. When the levy was $82.20 per tonne, there was talk of waste to Queensland.
At $95 per tonne, the trucks are on the road.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: There is no end in sight. Greg Freeman the managing director of Impact Environmental Consulting advises local governments on waste management.
GREG FREEMAN: Each year the levy goes up in New South Wales and so I think it will reach a point where it is cheaper to transport it longer distances.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Mike Ritchie, the director of Mike Ritchie and Associates says it's not illegal to move rubbish interstate and there are economic advantages.
MIKE RITCHIE: It's economically efficient for companies in the waste sector in this case to seek out the cheapest disposal of waste in the same way that companies in Bowen send their mangoes to Sydney because they get the best price for it.
The issue here is what are the policy settings by the different governments.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: The pressure is on Queensland to act, but State's Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection, Andrew Powell, does not want to make a hasty decision.
ANDREW POWELL: The transportation of waste into Queensland from other states is not illegal, in fact it is very challenging under the constitution in regards to free trade between states and territories for us to prevent interstate waste transport.
Having said that, the other aspect is that we do not have credible evidence to suggest this is occurring at a level that we should be concerned about. All we've heard to date is anecdotal information and what I have asked concerned parties to do is to provide me concrete data so that we can feed that into our considerations of Queensland's waste strategy.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Minister, how long before we might see a levy on rubbish going to landfill in Queensland?
ANDREW POWELL: Probably quite a while and certainly not under this government any time soon. It was an election commitment that we removed the waste levy, the waste levy the previous government put in was hastily concocted and put in largely at the cost to business and industry and is actually proving to be a disincentive for many recycling practices in this state.
We are determined to sit down with the broader waste industry to come up with a better waste solution that delivers real outcomes for the environment and for Queenslanders as a whole.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Don't you want the revenue at this point though?
ANDREW POWELL: I think that again is part of the issue with the previous government. Governments hate to install a waste levy, that it was more about raising revenue and raising taxes, a tax on business, than it was about environmental outcomes.
ELEANOR HALL: Queensland's Environment Minister Andrew Powell with Brendan Trembath.
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