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IRIS Tasmania  >  Infrastructure  >  Waste

Waste

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Maps – Waste

garbage truckWaste management performs a critical role in public health and safety and amenity. Effective waste management also provides an opportunity to conserve resources through effective avoidance and diversion of waste.

Tasmanians generate approximately one tonne of waste per person annually.

The Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts is responsible for:

  • management, transport and disposal of controlled waste through a number of statutory instruments, regulation and policy
  • permitting and regulating landfills receiving more than 100 tonnes of waste per annum
  • implementing the Landfill Sustainability Guide 2004.

Councils are responsible for managing individual waste transfer stations and landfill sites. Private operators and local councils who manage landfills are required to meet the requirements of the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act 1994, the Environmental Management and Pollution Control (Waste Management) Regulations 2000 and the Public Health Act 1997.

Tasmania's dispersed regional population historically led to growth of landfill sites which are now being decreased with the majority of waste being managed through waste transfer stations.

Waste is currently being disposed of in approximately twenty approved landfills. New best practice standards for landfills in Tasmania have been developed and are documented in the Landfill Sustainability Guide 2004 [PDF 760 KB].

There are also some privately operated landfill sites and these are owned and operated by:

  • Norske Skog
  • Temco
  • Copper Mines of Tasmania
  • Pasminco
  • Rosebery
  • Renison
  • Tasmanian Alkaloids
  • Comalco.