Environmental issues

Waste and resource recovery

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Waste avoidance and resource recovery in NSW

Waste Hierarchy

The waste hierarchy established under the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Act 2001, is one that is to ensure that resource management options are considered against the following priorities:

  1. Avoidance


    including action to reduce the amount of waste generated by households, industry and all levels of government.

  2. Resource Recovery


    including reuse, reprocessing, recycling and energy recovery, consistent with the most efficient use of the recovered resources.

  3. Disposal

    including management of all disposal options in the most environmentally responsible manner.

As the highest priority, Avoidance encourages the community to reduce the amount of waste it generates and to be more efficient in its use of resources.

Resource Recovery maximises the options for reuse, reprocessing, recycling and energy recovery at the highest net value of the recovered material. This encourages the efficient use of recovered resources while supporting the principles of improved environmental outcomes and ecologically sustainable development. Resource recovery can also embrace new and emerging technologies.

An end-of-pipe solution, Disposal is the least desirable option and must be carefully handled to minimise negative environmental outcomes.

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Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy (Waste Strategy)

The NSW Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2003 was a first for Australia.

Achieving a reduction in waste generation and turning waste into recoverable resources is a priority for NSW. To meet this challenge a framework for reducing waste and making better use of our resources was introduced. This is known as the Waste Strategy or WARR Strategy.

The NSW Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2003 has been superseded by the Waste Strategy 2007.


Producing and consuming efficiently to conserve our resources

This paper paints a vision about what each of us would be doing in a world that more actively conserved resources and avoided waste.

It helps us understand our current performance and the challenges we face and identifies possible actions and issues which we all - industry, governments and individuals need to debate and prioritise.

 

 

Page last updated: 27 February 2008