Shire plugs in to funding to clean up e-waste

THE Surf Coast Shire is seeking to get ahead of the coming ban on e-waste in landfill, approving a plan for its transfer sites in Anglesea, Lorne and Winchelsea to be upgraded to deal with the materials.

The ban on e-waste – any item with a plug, battery or cord that is no longer working or wanted – in landfill will be phased in over 12 months from July 1 next year, and the state government is providing grants to councils (through Sustainability Victoria) for upgrades to fixed collection and storage infrastructure for e-waste.

The funding will cover all infrastructure costs up to $100,000 per site, but not project management, design, engineering or approval costs.

At their meeting last month, councillors allocated the transfer of $15,000 from the waste reserve to each of the three transfer sites to cover project costs, as well as another $301,500 from the waste reserve towards previously planned e-waste infrastructure at the Anglesea transfer station to incorporate wind and rain protection and managing problem materials.

Cr Carol McGregor said the funding from Sustainability Victoria was an opportunity to keep as much e-waste out of landfill as possible.

“We’ve become such a society of disposable things over the years, and the one big thing that is growing is our disposable e-waste.”

Sustainability Victoria has also launched a new campaign, “Take your e-waste to a better place”, aimed at educating Victorians about the importance of recycling e-waste to not only avoid the toxins ending up in landfill, but also aid the recovery of all of the many recyclable elements in these devices that can be re-used.

It is estimated that we will have created 223,000 tonnes of broken and unwanted electrical items by 2023, and about 700 million e-waste items by 2020 alone unless recycling programs are introduced.

For more information on e-waste, head to ewaste.vic.gov.au.