The Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR) has welcomed the decision by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to retain the existing rules relating to construction and demolition resource recovery.
The NSW EPA has confirmed it will not move ahead with proposed changes to the ‘Recovered Fines (skip bin fines) Orders and Exemptions’, which threatened to disrupt the construction and demolition recycling sector.
The existing recovered fines orders and exemptions will remain in place and the EPA will instead focus on waste industry education, monitoring and compliance, to improve environmental outcomes.
Suzanne Toumbourou, ACOR Chief Executive Officer, said the proposed approach would have been difficult to implement, prohibitively costly and unnecessarily divert recoverable materials to landfill.
“The NSW EPA decision reflects the concerns of the recycling sector, small businesses and the construction industry over the last six months, and highlights the importance of a constructive relationship between industry and regulators,” Toumbourou said.
“The NSW EPA decision to retain the existing rules and instead focus on education and compliance is the appropriate approach to support progress towards the NSW resource recovery targets.
“Looking forward, we are very keen to work with the NSW Government on the review of the Resource Recovery Framework, which has great potential to catalyse significant circular economy outcomes through the resource recovery, remanufacturing and recycling value chain.”
For more information, visit: www.acor.org.au
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