Prescribed industrial waste landfills

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• Overview
• How much prescribed industrial waste is disposed to landfill in Victoria?

Overview

With the closure of Tullamarine landfill recently, there is only one landfill in Victoria, Lyndhurst Landfill, licensed to take a wide range of prescribed industrial wastes.

Other landfills across the state are licensed to accept certain low hazard wastes, for example low-level contaminated soil, packaged asbestos and odorous wastes such as seafood processing wastes.

From 1 July 2007 EPA's requirements that set stricter standards for wastes accepted at landfills came into effect. This has meant that some wastes have required improved treatment to reduce their hazard level before being sent to landfill.

All prescribed industrial wastes intended for landfill disposal must be classified into one of three categories Category A (highest hazard) Category B and Category C (lowest hazard). Only Category B and C wastes will be accepted at Lyndhurst landfill; Category A wastes must be treated to reduce the hazard to a lower level before disposal is considered.

The Lyndhurst landfill licence has been amended to restrict waste receival to Category B and C wastes.

The Lyndhurst Landfill is required to provide annual reports on its operation. It is also required to undertake annual environmental audits by an independent environmental auditor appointed under the Environment Protection Act 1970. These audits primarily look at possible impacts from landfill operation on beneficial uses of groundwater in the surrounding the area, and provide recommendations for monitoring, control and further improvements.

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How much prescribed industrial waste is disposed to landfill in Victoria?

Victoria has a strategy to accelerate reductions (PDF 203KB) in disposal of prescribed industrial waste through increased regulation, cost incentives and supporting industry to reduce waste.

In order to track industry's progress on reducing waste, EPA is reporting monthly on quantities of Category B and C manufacturing waste disposed to landfill.  The following link provides the quantities disposed over the past 12-months.

More on monthly disposal figures for manufacturing waste (PDF 163KB)

EPA will report quarterly on quanties of Category B and C contaminated soil as well as asbestos waste disposed to landfill.  The following link provides the quantities disposed over the past 12-months.

More on quarterly disposal figures for contaminated soil and asbestos waste ( PDF 92KB )

EPA will continue to report annually on the disposal of manufacturing waste, contaminated soils and asbestos disposed to landfill.

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Prescribed industrial waste disposed to landfill – annual trends

From 2000 to 2007 annual trends in the landfill disposal of manufacturing waste, contaminated soil and asbestos were reported by calendar year.  However, following implementation of the Hazard Classification System in July 2007, and the establishment of hazard categories, the way annual trends are reported has changed.  This is in order to detail the quantity of each hazard category disposed to landfill for manufacturing waste and contaminated soil.

The following link provides annual prescribed industrial waste disposal trends by calendar year from 2000 to 2007. (PDF 155KB)

The following link provides annual prescribed industrial waste disposal trends by financial year from July 2008-09.(PDF 230KB)

All the information presented in the graphs above is obtained through EPA's transport certificate system. This system ensures that waste disposed to landfills is accompanied by a certificate which specifies the type and quantity of waste. In 1999 most of the quantities written on certificates were estimates of the volume (cubic metres) of waste in the truck. Over the past several years there has been a transition to the use of weighbridge weights (in kilograms) as this provides a more objective, verifiable quantity. The older certificates with a quantity in cubic metres have been converted to kilograms assuming that 1 cubic metre = 1000 kilograms or 1 tonne. This is a reasonable estimate for wastes such as contaminated soils, but could overestimate the weight of light, bulky wastes such as plastic containers with chemical residues.

 

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