What it contains

This publication applies from 1 July 2021.

The Environment Protection Act 2017 commenced on 1 July 2021. The Environment Protection Regulations (Part 4.2) that apply under this Act specify the process for classifying waste. This publication lists criteria against which certain wastes are intended to be assessed to determine which waste disposal category applies.

For the purposes of classifying industrial waste that is soil, EPA continues to require assessment of the soil. This includes an understanding of site history, to identify which contaminants require analysis. An assessment must be undertaken for all chemical substances known and reasonably expected to be in the waste. This means not all contaminants listed in this publication need to be analysed in every waste, unless they are known or reasonably expected to be present. To determine an appropriate sampling and assessment regime, please refer to relevant EPA guidance including Soil sampling (publication IWRG702).

Where soil contains known or reasonably expected contaminants exceeding the upper limits for fill material in Table 3 of EPA Publication 1828.2the soil will be classified as contaminated soil.

Refer to Table 2 of EPA Publication 1828.2,to assign a category of priority waste for disposal.

Where soil does not contain any known or reasonably expected contaminants exceeding the upper limits for fill material in Table 3 of EPA Publication 1828.2, (and there are no other contaminants known or reasonably expected to be present, for example, asbestos, WASS, PFAS), the soil can be classified as fill material. The contaminant thresholds listed in Table 3 of EPA Publication 1828.2, are consistent with EPA’s assessment requirements for soil under the Environment Protection Act 1970 and Industrial Waste Resource Guidelines 621. 

In circumstances where there are known or reasonably expected contaminants not included in Table 3 of EPA Publication 1828.2, which may be present in the soil, please contact EPA for further guidance or a designation. This is consistent with EPA’s assessment requirements for soil under the Environment Protection Act 1970 and Soil hazard categorisation and management (publication IWRG621). Alternatively, you may assign a category of priority waste based on the contaminant concentrations for that contaminant if it is listed in Table 2 of EPA Publication 1828.2. If the contaminant is not listed in Table 2, please contact EPA for further guidance or a designation.

Waste classifications issued under the Environment Protection (Industrial Waste Resource) Regulations 2009 in force immediately prior to 1 July 2021 are saved and deemed to be designations under the new Environment Protection Framework. This means that these classifications continue to operate on their own terms and are valid until their specified expiry date or 30 June 2023, whichever comes first. It also means that where those classifications refer to historical EPA publications, for example Soil hazard categorisation and management (publication IWRG621), those publications continue to apply to the saved classifications despite replacement publications such as EPA Publication 1828.2.

A draft of this document was published for comment on the Engage Victoria website in September 2019, as part of a proposed package of subordinate legislation. The changes made to this document (compared to the draft) are explained in the Response to public comment report which was released by Government in December 2020.

Publication number
1828.2
Number of pages
10
Release date
17 March 2021

Reviewed 29 October 2021