Take any building you occupy across Australia, and chances are that much of the excess building material that went into making it was hauled off to the nearest tip site, never to be seen or used again.
It’s a traditional practice in civil engineering projects where leftovers are figuratively scraped into the bin when instead they could have been saved and used for future projects as recycled building material.
But now the Western Australian government has put its foot down on the practice.
Not by punishing perpetrators, but by offering financial incentives to councils, the private sector and agencies to increase their use of recycled construction and demolition materials in the building of roads, car parks and drains.
The scheme valued at $10 million is called the Construction and Demolition Product Procurement Incentive Program as part of the existing Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Account, which will take place over three years in two streams.
According to the government, the first stream will provide a pre-allocated, non-competitive financial incentive payment for each metropolitan council which uses recycled construction and demolition products in its own operations.
The second will involve open, competitive funding for the purchase and use of recycled construction and demolition products by the private sector, metropolitan local governments and state government entities.
The government plans to use incentive program to encourage councils and other bodies to use recycled road base, but also recycled fill sand and recycled drainage aggregate.
This is to reverse WA’s significantly lower use of recycled construction and demolition materials compared to other states, with three million tonnes of construction and demolition waste generated and two million tonnes going to landfill each year.
WA Minister for Environment Albert Jacob said it was important that better use was made of recycled construction and demolition materials to reduce the amount going to landfill.
“Western Australia has a poor record in the use of recycled construction and demolition materials,” Mr Jacob said.
He said this waste makes up about half of all materials sent to landfill in Western Australia, while the products it could replace, such as limestone, are getting harder to source close to the metropolitan area.
“This government’s financial incentive will raise awareness about the benefits of using these recycled products,” Mr Jacob said.
According to Mr Jacob, it is the aim of the government to see all metropolitan local governments using recycled construction and demolition products and experiencing the benefits.
“Increased use of these products is likely to see the prices of recycled construction and demolition waste fall further, and a range of information and awareness measures will ensure the community better understands the benefits of using these materials,” Mr Jacob said.
