FEES WAIVED FOR FLOOD WASTE
Monday, 17 October 2022
Waste levy waiver and gate fee rebate for flood waste
The Victorian Government has announced that the waste levy will be waived and the landfill operator gate fees rebated for flood waste received from the following 46 flood affected local government areas (LGAs). The government has also announced that Emergency Recovery Victoria has engaged a contractor to prioritise the collection of flood affected waste from impacted areas.
The waste levy exemption and gate fee rebate applies to flood affected waste from the following municipalities:
- Alpine Shire Council
- Ararat Rural City Council
- Banyule City Council
- Benalla Rural City Council
- Boroondara Council
- Brimbank City Council
- Buloke Shire Council
- Campaspe Shire Council
- Central Goldfields Shire Council
- City of Ballarat
- City of Greater Geelong
- Colac Otway Shire Council
- Corangamite Shire Council
- Gannawarra Shire Council
- Glenelg Shire
- Golden Plains Shire Council
- Greater Bendigo City Council
- Greater Shepparton City Council
- Hepburn Shire Council
- Horsham Rural City Council
- Hume City Council
- Indigo Shire Council
- Loddon Shire Council
- Macedon Ranges Shire Council
- Manningham City Council
- Mansfield Shire Council
- Maribyrnong City Council
- Melbourne City Council
- Mitchell Shire Council
- Moira Shire Council
- Moonee Valley City Council
- Moorabool Shire Council
- Mount Alexander Shire Council
- Moyne Shire
- Murrindindi Shire Council
- Northern Grampians Shire Council
- Pyrenees Shire Council
- Strathbogie Shire Council
- Swan Hill Rural City Council
- Wangaratta Rural City Council
- Warrnambool City Council
- Whittlesea Council
- Wodonga Council
- Wyndham City Council
- Yarra Ranges Council
- Yarriambiack Shire Council
Application of the waste levy waiver
The waste levy waiver applies to any Victorian landfill that receives flood waste from the affected local government areas. The waiver applies until 31 December 2022.
In the context of the waiver, “flood waste” means any material deposited on a property by the floods or damaged by the floods, that requires disposal to landfill.
Information on the received flood waste will need to be provided on Waste Levy Statements submitted to EPA. Landfills should ensure a subcode is used at the weighbridge to designate the incoming waste loads as flood waste and therefore subject to the waiver.
Gate fee rebate
A rebate of the gate fee paid for flood waste received at a landfill will be provided by the Government so that there is no cost to the impacted communities.
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning will be directly contacting landfill operators to confirm your discounted gate rate and discuss how to best interact with your systems to enable payment.
To claim the gate fee rebate, landfills will need to ensure that evidence is obtained to verify that the waste is flood waste from an affected LGA.
As a minimum, the following information should be obtained so that landfills can verify the source of waste being received at the landfill:
- If the waste is received at the landfill from a resident (non-commercial transporter), evidence in the form of a driver’s licence showing an address in one of the LGAs or a recent rates notice should be provided.
- If waste is received from a transfer station, landfills should ensure they are provided with evidence from the waste transporter and the transfer station.
- This means a declaration provided by the transfer station that the waste is flood waste from one of the 46 LGAs.
- From the transporter, landfills should ensure consignment details are provided that show the source of the waste as being from one of the LGAs.
- If the producer of the waste is not a transfer station, landfills should request a declaration from the transporter that the waste is flood waste.
The subcode used at the weighbridge to designate the waste as flood waste for which the waste levy is waived, should be used to determine the amount of rebate to be claimed.
Further information on the evidence required to support claiming a gate fee rebate and the method to claim the rebate from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning will be provided shortly.
Using Waste Tracker to track flood waste
The duty to track flood waste that is classified as reportable priority waste (RPW) will remain, unless otherwise advised by EPA. Therefore, you must continue using Waste Tracker as usual.
To track the flood waste that is RPW, producers, drivers and receivers should enter the code WLW17102022 in the ‘additional information’ section of the waste record. All waste must be appropriately classified.
If you have any questions on the waste levy waiver, please contact EPA at waste.levy@epa.vic.gov.au.
