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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 589 asked in the Legislative Council on 1 September 2021 by Hon Dr Steve Thomas

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

WASTE LEVY — ENERGY RECOVERY

589. Hon Dr STEVE THOMAS to the minister representing the Minister for Environment:

I ask this question on behalf of Hon Tjorn Sibma, who is away on urgent parliamentary business.

I refer to work arising from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation's Review of the waste levy: Consultation paper released 18 months ago. What factors are driving the government to adopt a position that will impose a levy on waste feedstock diverted from landfill to energy recovery?

Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for asking that question on behalf of Hon Tjorn Sibma, and I thank him for notice of the question.

The Waste avoidance and resource recovery strategy 2030: Western Australia's waste strategy gives preference to material recovery over energy recovery and includes a target to recover energy only from residual waste. Energy recovery is preferable to landfill disposal but should be applied only to residual waste once better practice source-separation approaches have been exhausted. Better practice source-separation approaches such as food organics and garden organics—FOGO—collection systems promote separation of recyclable materials and organics at the household for recovery.

The option of applying a levy to non-residual waste supplied for energy was canvassed in the Review of the waste levy: Consultation paper: February 2020 as a means of maximising material recovery consistent with the target in the waste strategy. The paper points to South Australia as another jurisdiction that has a similar approach. There are other options to achieve this and no decisions have yet been made by government.