Waste Management

There is increasing pressure to recover wastes from landfill and to utilise them on productive agricultural land. This trend is recognised in the Victorian Government’s Towards Zero Waste Strategy which calls for the recovery of solid waste from landfill to increase to 75% in 2013.

The avoidance of waste is the most important starting point in improving resource-use efficiency and minimising the potential impact of waste disposal. Though waste production is an inevitable consequence of economic development, any potential negative impacts also need to be avoided. The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) addresses these challenges by investigating the potential to recover wastes for productive use in agriculture. When wastes are re-used responsibly and beneficially they are correctly termed ‘recoverable resources’. To shift the paradigm and regard wastes as recoverable resources, particularly for the agricultural sector, it is essential to demonstrate that the long-term impacts from re-using wastes are not detrimental to human, animal, plant or environmental health.

The three principles of DPI’s R&D Waste Management Strategy in Agriculture are:

Reducing wastes produced by agricultural activities,
Preventing long term degradation or restriction of land used for agriculture due to the application of wastes
Assisting in the uptake and responsible use of wastes for agricultural production systems.

Current DPI projects related to Waste Management:

‘Closing The Loop: An holistic approach to the management of dairy processor waste streams’

CRC for CARE (Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment)

References
Towards Zero Waste: A Materials Efficiency Strategy for Victoria. EcoRecycle Victoria, 2003.

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