Millions wasted in dump bungles
EXCLUSIVE by LINDA SILMALIS
The Sunday Telegraph
December 09, 201212:00AM
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It has become far cheaper to dump rubbish over the border, even with extra fuel and transportation costs. Picture: David Earley Source: The Sunday Telegraph
MILLIONS of dollars set aside to improve the state’s infrastructure are being lost as waste operators dodge a $95 levy by dumping Sydney’s rubbish in Queensland.
Every day scores of B-double trucks loaded with soil contaminated with asbestos, heavy metals and household rubbish are being unloaded at Queensland waste stations.
The practice began on July 1 after the NSW government increased the rubbish dumping levy in the state by $10 to $95.25 at the same time as the Queensland government scrapped its waste taxes altogether.
Waste operators have told The Sunday Telegraph that it had become far cheaper to head north on the Pacific Highway, even with extra fuel and transportation costs.
The Sunday Telegraph has also been told of instances where landfill operators have dug up old rubbish and loaded it on to trucks to send it across the border.
Under State laws, the levy is returned per tonne for rubbish taken from a landfill site – a regulation designed to encourage recycling.
Dial A Dump Industries operator Ian Malouf – whose $300 million landfill site in western Sydney was opened with great fanfare by the NSW government late last year and formally began receiving waste last month – said the volume of rubbish was well down on expectations prior the levy hike. “It is madness. The guys have told me that it is too expensive to tip their rubbish here and I understand that, but it is a completely mad situation,” he said.
“The amount of revenue that should be going to NSW for roads and infrastructure and other things is basically being lost because Queensland has removed its levy.
“Also, it’s such a carbon contradiction because half the rubbish being trucked over to Queensland is the by-product of recycled products. So here people are recycling rubbish, then burning up fuel to truck it to Queensland.”
Mr Malouf, whose rubbish dump is regarded as the biggest in the southern hemisphere, said each Queensland-bound B-double truck represented just under $4000 worth of lost revenue to NSW in waste levies.
NSW Waste Contractors & Recyclers Association executive director Tony Khoury, who has written to NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell about the situation, said around 2000 trucks per month were heading to Queensland.
“I know of one case where around 10 trucks a day are being ordered to collect waste to take to Queensland,” Mr Khoury said.
“If every truck is around $3800 per load, that’s millions of dollars in lost revenue to the state government each month.”