Waste Management Strategy - full version - City of Whittlesea

The arguments above suggest the application of a levy only provides a disincentive to wastecollectors (i.e. local Government), at the products end of life, where options for disposal arelimited. The materials producers and consumers, however, have little incentive, through waste levy policy, toreduce products inputs or consumption patterns, to achieve behavioural change and the holistic wastereduction strategy promoted by the EPA (2011; 2002, p.1).Rasmussen and Vigso (2005); Ackerman (1997; 2005); BDA Group (2004); Price and Joseph (2000); and Strong(2000) consider this a major limitation of the landfill levy policy application. Combined with the prescriptivesimplistic nature of the waste hierarchy only providing end of pipe solutions, landfill levy policy appears to beopposed to addressing the root cause of the waste generation problem.Interestingly, the Victorian EPA also supports this argument as indicated by their response to an EnvironmentAustralia commissioned report - Market Based Instruments for Waste Management. In the report the EPAconfirms that increasing landfill levies does not by itself drive rapid or substantial reduction in volumes ofwaste generated. Rather, efforts to reduce waste volumes disposed to landfill are generally most effectivewhen directed at waste generators rather than landfill operators or municipal councils (BDA Group 2004).The BDA Group (2004) argues that the links between disposal costs (e.g. landfill disposal fees, including thelandfill levy) and the behaviour of waste generators are often weak. This is due to the inherent lack oftransparency in itemising landfill disposal costs in municipal rates, and landfill operators and local councils havelittle if any influence over the activities that generate waste.The increases to the Victorian landfill levy, however are forecast to collect an additional $200 million a year,over the five-year period from 2010 to 2015 (MAV 2011a). Of this additional revenue, only a small proportion isidentified to be re-directed back into to municipal waste purposes or to increase the capacity of recycling andwaste diversion from landfill, through end-of-pipe treatment solutions. Limited funds recovered from thelandfill levy are allocated to address the generation of waste at the source of the materials product life cycle.Before the recent increases, the landfill levy collected around $50 million a year. These funds are distributedunder a formula established in the Environmental Protection (Distribution of Landfill Levy) Regulations 2010(and previously the 2002 version of the regulations). In 2008-09, the landfill levy was distributed betweenrelevant stakeholders and programs in the following manner:Table 6: 2008-09 landfill Levy distributed under Environmental Protection Act regulationsOrganisationRegional Waste Management groups (12)Metropolitan Waste Management GroupSustainability VictoriaEPA VictoriaSustainability FundTOTALSource: Municipal Association of Victoria (2011b).Funding$2.8 million$1.7 million$22 million$5.4 million$21 million$53 millionOf the additional $200 million forecast to be collected a year under the new arrangements, the previous StateGovernment made several funding commitments in the first year, totalling $56 million (MAV 2011b, p11). Theremaining $146 million is allocated to a general environmental sustainability fund to be administered bySustainability Victoria and not totally into “fostering environmentally sustainable use of resources and bestpractice in waste management” as described by EPA Victoria (2002 p.1). This approach therefore supports theProductivity Commission’s evaluation, that “Levies are currently used primarily to achieve landfill diversiontargets and to generate revenue for government (p.221)”.41