Australia: the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 and the phased waste export ban

The Australian Parliament passed the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 on 8 December 2020, and the act received royal assent on 15 December. It introduces a phased ban on exports of unprocessed waste. The first material covered by the rules is glass (from 1 January 2021), and further streams – plastics, tyres, and paper and cardboard – are covered by restrictions in the following years.

What the act regulates

According to the Clayton Utz analysis, the export of “regulated waste material” is prohibited unless it meets the conditions set out in the rules. The rules may require an export licence and a declaration for each consignment, and the minister may grant temporary exemptions (for up to 12 months). The ban therefore does not mean an absolute block: exports of processed materials meeting the conditions are possible. The details are set out in separate regulations (rules) for individual waste streams.

Timetable

According to Clayton Utz, the ban applies to unprocessed waste on the following dates:

• glass (whole or crushed) – from 1 January 2021,
• mixed plastics requiring further sorting or processing – from 1 July 2021,
• used tyres (including baled) – from 1 December 2021,
• single-resin or single-polymer plastics – from 1 July 2022,
• mixed and unsorted paper and cardboard – from 1 July 2024.

Because the details are introduced in regulations, in practice the current rules should be checked with the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE).

It is accompanied by an act on consequential and transitional provisions (the Recycling and Waste Reduction (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2020).

Link to organics and biogas

The act concerns inorganic materials, but it has an indirect effect on biogas: it forces the development of domestic waste processing infrastructure, and together with other instruments (landfill levies, recovery targets) it changes the calculation for plants handling the organic fraction. The export ban also increases interest in waste-to-energy, because some streams have no market.

What this means for Poland

A similar tension between the waste export market and local processing is visible in the EU (the waste shipment regulation). For Polish processors the Australian example confirms that restricting exports of low-quality waste is a lasting global trend.