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Publications
A newsletter on Australian hazardous waste import and export issues
Department of the Environment and Heritage, March 2005
The Department of the Environment and Heritage (DEH) administers the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989. The Act was developed to enable Australia to comply with specific obligations under the Basel Convention on the Control of the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their disposal.
The Department assesses applications to export, import or transit hazardous wastes, ensures compliance with and enforcement of the Act, provides information to the public, and formulates proposals to amend legislation and policies relating to the movement of hazardous waste to, from or through Australia.
Used electronic and electrical equipment exported for final disposal, for recycling or for major repair is defined as hazardous waste under the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989 and must not be exported and imported without a permit under the Act.
Some exported equipment may end up in facilities that are equipped to deal with it safely, but there is also a considerable cottage industry that deals with this waste. Backyard operations, sometimes involving whole villages, will try to recover the copper and precious metals from the used equipment. The techniques used lead to gross environmental pollution and potential poisoning of workers, including children.
However, a significant amount of modern IT equipment is exported for re-use in developing countries. Provided that such equipment is suitable for re-use, it is not defined as waste and, therefore, is not regulated under the Act.
Over the past 15 months DEH has been working with representatives from the IT industry, including Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), IT lease companies, recyclers and exporters to develop an acceptable set of easily used criteria that could be easily applied to separate good functional equipment from used equipment suitable only for recycling. These were finalised in February 2005.
The criteria are a set of six simple questions relating to the general condition of the equipment, whether it has been tested and found to be in good working order and whether it is being exported for re-use or for disposal/recycling.
The criteria do not introduce any new regulations - they simply clarify operation of the Act in respect of the export and import of used electronic and electrical equipment.
You can download the criteria from the DEH Internet site at: http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/chemicals/hazardous-waste/electronic-paper.html. Hard copies are also available.
Contact: 02 6274 1627
The export and import of hazardous waste to or from OECD countries for recovery is regulated by the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) (OECD Decision) Regulations 1996. In April 2004, amendments to these Regulations gave effect to a new OECD Council Decision, C(2001)107/FINAL. The new Decision:
A copy of the OECD Decision Regulations is available at: http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/cgi-bin/download.pl?/scale/data/pastereg/2/1334.
The Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) (Fees Regulations) 1990 prescribe fees to be paid in relation to applications for permits. The fees must be reasonably related to the expenses incurred by the Commonwealth. They were last reviewed in 1996, when the scope of the Act was extended to regulate commercially valuable wastes exported or imported for recycling.
In 1996 we expected that exports and imports for recycling would require much less detailed scrutiny than exports and imports for final disposal. In the absence of practical experience, fees were set on the assumption that processing an application would take no more than a minimal number of hours.
A new review of the expenses incurred by the Commonwealth has shown that the costs of administering permits are between four and twelve times greater than the fees charged. The costs are, therefore, heavily subsidised from general tax revenue. Arrangements are being made to increase the fees to levels that recover the costs to the Commonwealth.
Under the Act, if another Basel Party controls a particular substance as hazardous waste, and the substance is not otherwise controlled as a hazardous waste, the Minister must declare the substance is controlled as hazardous waste if it is to be exported to that country.
All used toner is controlled as hazardous waste under Thai law but most used toner lacks hazardous characteristics and so is not controlled under the Australian Act.
The Minister has therefore extended the meaning of hazardous waste by declaring that all used toner is hazardous waste for the purposes of export from Australia to Thailand.
A copy of the declaration is available at: http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/chemicals/hazardous-waste/thailand-declaration.html.
Under the Act, the Minister may issue a written certificate stating that a specified substance is, or is not, hazardous waste.
An evidentiary certificate has been issued to state that electronic equipment that is exported to honour warranty obligations or product recalls issued by the original equipment manufacturer is not hazardous waste. A copy of the certificate is available at: http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/chemicals/hazardous-waste/fact.html
Contact: 02 6274 1609
Two cargoes of zinc ash were seized on suspicion that export would contravene Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989. Analyses clearly indicated lead levels in the ash well above 0.5%, a concentration above which wastes are defined as hazardous wastes under the Act.
Two cargoes of zinc sulphate were returned to the country of origin under ministerial order because they were heavily contaminated with cadmium. Two other ministerial orders were made to dispose of imported material within Australia.
Fact sheets for use by industry and the general public are available and cover the import of zinc fertilisers; why zinc ash from hot dip galvanising is a hazardous waste; and a fact sheet on electronic scrap. The fact sheets are available at: http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/chemicals/hazardous-waste/fact.html
With the implementation of the new Export system within the Australian Customs Service, we have new tools available to monitor the use of permits to ensure compliance with all of the permit conditions. A breach of permit conditions can lead to a permit being revoked. It is also important to note that permit holders must report their permit number on any Customs import or export declarations.
An Inspector under the Act visited Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Beijing in May 2004. The aim was to try and gain a better understanding of the Asian market for used electronic equipment, its trade routes and potential drivers and barriers in countries of the region, and how regulators in the region deal with this waste.
Facilities differed in their ability to perform repairs and ranged from those in well managed industrial estates or economic zones, operated by large multinational companies to good environmental standards, to poorly managed facilities outside the estates.
Information Paper No 5, Second edition, published by DEH in October 2002, provides guidance on whether wastes containing metals or metal compounds are regulated under the Act. The guidance sets metal concentration cut-offs that protect human health in the work place and ensure that toxicants do not leach into the drinking water supply.
DEH is concerned that the current cut-offs may protect human health, but not the environment. For example, the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality set trigger values for cadmium, lead and mercury that are significantly lower than the equivalent drinking water criteria. DEH is currently investigating options to ensure that the environment is adequately protected from toxic metals.
Contact: 02 6274 1846 or 02 6274 1619
The seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Basel Convention was held in Geneva in October 2004. The COP is the governing body that makes the decisions on the implementation and interpretation of the Convention. The main outcome from the meeting was the setting of concentration cut-offs above which persistent organic pollutants must be destroyed under the Stockholm Convention.
COP7 adopted technical guidelines on the environmentally sound recycling/reclamation of metals and metal compounds (R4). Australia was the lead country in preparing the guidelines and a copy is available at: http://www.basel.int/meetings/cop/cop7/docs/08a3e.pdf
The Open Ended Working Group to the Basel Convention is drafting Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes resulting from surface treatment of metals and plastics (Y17). Australia is the lead country in preparing the draft guidelines and a copy is available at: http://www.basel.int/meetings/oewg/oewg3/i08e.doc.
Australia is the lead country on the development of general technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and Polychlorinated Dibenzofurans (PCDFs).
Contact: 02 6274 1619 or 02 6274 1846
A number of Information Papers are available to assist in understanding the Basel Convention and how it is implemented by the Hazardous Waste Act in Australia. These papers are available at: http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/chemicals/hazardous-waste/papers/index.html
We are currently reviewing some of the Information Papers and new versions of these papers are expected by mid 2005.
Fact sheets and evidentiary certificate are available at: http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/chemicals/hazardous-waste/fact.html
Contact: 02 6274 1754
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