National Government waste reduction and purchasing guidelines

Department of the Environment and Heritage

1.0 Introduction

These national guidelines are an important component of the ANZECC waste reduction strategy for Australia. In November 1995, ANZECC directed member agencies to:

increase government commitment to waste reduction and recycling in government offices; and
formalise government purchasing policies on goods with recycled content, including the monitoring of performance.

The National Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines will make an important contribution to the achievement of ANZECCs adopted target of a 50% reduction of waste going to landfill by the year 2000 based on 1990 per capita levels. The guidelines will also ensure that government workplaces are more environmentally responsible and provide significant financial cost savings.

Such action is important both because government is a large generator of waste in its own right, and because the credibility of government waste reduction policy depends in part on the waste reduction achieved by governments and their agencies.

Government purchases make up a sizeable proportion of expenditure in the Australian economy. It follows that governments can have a significant impact on the market for environmentally responsible products.

This paper includes guidelines which will act as a starting point and reference for ANZECC members as they develop their own government policies, including purchasing policies, to encourage the reduction of material waste. The paper sets out objectives and principles which governments may adopt, and actions which can be considered. The guidelines cannot be prescriptive for two reasons. Firstly different governments will have different circumstances and priorities. Secondly, each ANZECC member will need to seek whole of government agreement to implement the guidelines within their own jurisdiction.

1.1 Scope

The National Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines covers Australian Government, State and Territory agencies, including departments, corporations and other statutory bodies. It does not apply to Local Government, for which best practice guidelines are being developed separately. It is aimed at reducing material waste and does not include other forms of waste such as energy and water.

2.0 Objectives and Principles

2.1 Objectives

The objectives of the National Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines are the conservation of resources and the reduction in amount of waste generated by government organisations. This will be achieved by applying the following waste reduction goals and principles to government operations and purchasing.

In order to help meet the national waste reduction goal of reducing waste going to landfill by 50 per cent by the year 2000 based on 1990 per capita levels, governments and their agencies will endeavour to achieve the following goals by the year 2000;

50% diversion of government waste from landfill by 2000 (ie 50% of waste to be re-used or recycled); and
5% source reduction of government waste between 1995 and 2000 (ie using less material and therefore generating less waste to produce the equivalent output).

2.2 Principles

In order to achieve these goals, governments and their agencies will adopt the following principles:

Precautionary Approach: Decisions on waste management by governments and their agencies will seek to avoid serious or irreversible damage to the environment, and be responsible for assessment of the risk weighted consequences of various options.
Economic Efficiency: An appropriate balance will be struck between the benefits and costs of waste reduction. In principle this involves ensuring that prices of waste management resources and services are adjusted to reflect their full environmental and social values. In practice, since environmental and social values are often hard to measure, efforts to achieve waste reduction should be cost effective, and not be disproportionate to the significance of the environmental problems being addressed.
Life Cycle Approach: Governments and their agencies will move towards a life cycle approach to waste management. This will encompass all aspects of resource use, waste generation, storage, transport, treatment and disposal.
Waste Management Hierarchy: Governments will take account of a hierarchy of waste management priorities. In order of preference these will be: waste avoidance, reduction, reuse, recycling, treatment and disposal.
Polluter Pays Principle: Governments and their agencies will take responsibility for the waste they generate.

3.0 Issues

In developing and implementing these guidelines a number of issues need to be addressed and managed.

3.1 Interagency variations

There are wide variations in the nature of government agencies, their operations and the wastes that they generate. Wastes generated by agencies range from the highly differentiated waste streams of large Australian Government agencies such as the Department of Defence and Telstra, to the less differentiated waste streams of the smaller Australian Government and State/Territory agencies. While common waste management principles apply to all government agencies, substantial variations can be expected in waste management plans of different agencies. Options for waste minimisation may also vary according to geographic location.

3.2 Implications of contracting out

An increasing proportion of the services managed by government agencies are contracted to external suppliers. Contracts for these suppliers should reflect the waste reduction principles and practices of the National Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines and the contracting agencies.

3.3 Balancing benefits and costs

Governments and their agencies face strong pressures to cut costs. This can lead to a predisposition against outlays or purchasing practices which encourage waste reduction unless there are clear financial benefits. It is important that governments and their agencies do not overlook the economic benefits which often arise from waste reduction initiatives. For example, changing from paper to electronic mail can lead to savings of both human and material resources.

3.4 Waste reduction priorities

There are limited statistics available on waste composition or the total waste generated by government agencies in Australia. However, the most significant waste streams overall are considered to be paper products, office equipment, green waste and construction and demolition waste. Therefore the priorities for government waste reduction are likely to correspond to these areas.

Waste reduction priorities need to be determined taking into account the availability of substitute products and the feasibility of introducing them. With that perspective, the major priorities for the government's waste reduction and purchasing strategies are:

waste paper minimisation and recycling;
office equipment;
construction products and demolition wastes; and
garden and food wastes - the significance of these wastes vary widely between agencies.

While it is recognised that the collection and recycling of organic wastes can be more problematic than for other wastes, it is nevertheless important that governments strive to participate in meeting the objectives of the Green and Organic Waste Management Strategy to reduce green and organic waste by 50% of 1990 levels by 2000.

4.0 Key Elements of the Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines

The National Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines has three critical elements:

Common broadly based waste reduction and purchasing policies adopted by the whole of government.
Waste reduction and purchasing plans tailored to the nature and activities of each agency. These directions and guidelines will be developed by agencies themselves. For example, agencies with a relatively large capital stock and expenditures, such as the Department of Defence, would require a many faceted policy approach. Waste management plans for agencies which have mainly policy functions, and relatively low capital expenditures, are likely to focus on minimising the waste of paper and information processing equipment. Different agencies will be able to contribute to waste reduction in different ways and in varying degrees.
Effective monitoring and reporting systems to track the implementation of policies and plans.

Agencies will require resources and staff will require training in order to discharge these responsibilities.

5.0 Action to Encourage Government Waste Reduction

There are a range of actions which can be taken to enable governments and their agencies to maximise their contribution to the achievement of the national waste reduction target. These include collaborative actions by ANZECC members, and actions which ANZECC members can pursue within their jurisdictions. All of these actions will encourage waste reduction by government agencies and some will also give more general encouragement to waste reduction.

Collaborative national actions

Some actions to encourage waste reduction by government agencies are equally relevant to all jurisdictions. There are efficiencies to be gained in pursuing these actions on a collaborative basis across jurisdictions. These actions are:

research and educational services to promote waste reduction such as the development of new technologies and waste reduction awareness programs;
development and implementation of common national standards and specifications for the use of products which are recyclable or include recycled material;
work with industry to overcome specific problems and barriers (e.g. compatibility of recycled paper with common office equipment);
improving the availability of information in government offices and other facilities about how to reduce and recycle waste and the benefit of waste reduction; and
collection of information on national and international best practices in waste reduction and purchasing.

Actions which ANZECC members will pursue within their jurisdictions

Within their jurisdictions ANZECC members can promote waste reduction by government agencies through action to provide a supportive policy framework, and encouragement of best waste reduction practice by government agencies.

Members can also develop individual waste reduction agreements with those government Departments and Corporations which are significant contributors to the national waste stream.

Policy framework

ANZECC members will seek the adoption by their governments of a policy framework which will encourage waste reduction by government agencies. A supportive policy framework will include adoption of the objectives and principles set out in Section 2 of these guidelines. It will also include:

pricing of waste disposal to landfill which reflects environmental and social costs;
material separation at landfill and transfer station facilities;
better government building designs which allow for effective recycling operations;
allowing agencies to retain savings arising from their waste reduction initiatives;
purchasing policies which give preference for products which are recyclable or contain recycled content where they are suitable, environmentally preferred and of comparable cost and quality to other products;
the use of whole of government common use contracts to encourage better markets for products which are recyclable or contain recycled content, particularly paper; and
ensuring that agencies have access to adequate information about goods which are recyclable or have recycled content, so that opportunities to use these goods are not overlooked.

Best practice for government agencies

Members will encourage the adoption of the following waste reduction practices by government agencies:

waste audits of their operations to establish the amount and composition of waste and the effectiveness of strategies and actions to minimise and recycle waste. Such audits will provide a tool for assessing performance and help to establish performance benchmarks;
establishment of regularly updated databases on resources and waste generated;
development of directions and guidelines to encourage waste reduction;
preparation of waste management plans. These plans are to include office practices with an emphasis on the source reduction, separation and recycling of waste. These plans should be consistent with the overall targets of 50% diversion of waste from landfill, and 5% source reduction of waste;
contract arrangements with goods and services suppliers which reflect the waste reduction principles and practices of the National Government Waste Reduction and Purchasing Guidelines and their own waste management plans;
purchasing practices which give preference to products which are recyclable or contain recycled content where they are suitable, provide environmental benefits and are of comparable cost and quality to other products. Least cost should not be pursued as the sole criteria for purchasing decisions;
incorporation of principles of waste reduction and recycling in the design and construction of new or leased buildings and their surrounds and government operated engineering projects;
education and training of employees in waste reduction and purchasing practices; and
including in Agency's Annual Reports, progress reports on implementation of waste management plans including outcomes against indicators for each major waste category.

6.2 Implementation

Appendix A contains a report on the progress of ANZECC members in implementing the above waste reduction and purchasing guidelines.

ANZECC members will provide a further report to ANZECC in December 1997 on progress in their jurisdiction in developing and implementing the objectives, principles and actions in these guidelines, including quantitative indicators of waste reduction.