National Waste Policy Regulatory Impact Statement

Market players

Information on the resource recovery and waste management sectors is limited and reflects those companies that identify their main activities as resource recovery or waste services. Many companies, however, undertake waste avoidance, re-use and resource recovery as part of their business operations but are not identified as contributing to the resource recovery and waste management sectors as defined by ABS or similar economic classification systems.

In Australia, a report by IBISWorld (2009) found that seven waste services companies which undertake resource recovery and waste management operate on a national basis and that the six largest account for 44 per cent of market share ().

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggests that in 2002-03 there were approximately 1700 organisations delivering waste management services. Local governments run approximately 600 of these 1700 organisations.

Within the remaining 1092 organisations identified by the ABS in 2002-03, a small number of companies have a dominant share of the market. According to analysis in The Blue Book - Australian Waste Industry 2007-08 industry and market report, in 2002-03:

• 
  54 per cent of the waste and resource recovery-recycling services market is provided by less than one half of 1 per cent of all companies offering services in the sector;
  
• 
  less than 5 per cent of service providers have 82 per cent of the market;
  
• 
  7 per cent of the market is shared by 81 per cent of the service providers; and
  
• 
  the trend towards greater concentration of market power in a few large companies is continuing.
  
• 
  
  

Major players in the Australian waste services INDUSTRY



Source: IBISWorld 2009, p. 25.

The seven largest national waste services are outlined in . These and other large companies generated $1,840.4 million (68.6 per cent of total industry revenue) (ABS 2004). The remainder is small and medium enterprises.

Large australian waste services companies

Transpacific Industries Group Ltd is a Queensland-based firm, providing waste management services in solid and liquid wastes. The company also provides industrial cleaning services, refines used oil into fuel, and operates a heavy-duty commercial vehicles business. In 2007, the firm acquired Cleanaway, the largest waste management service provider in Australia, handling more than 7 million cubic metres of solid waste and 730 million litres of liquid waste. Through a series of acquisitions, Transpacific maintains contracts in all states and territories (except Tasmania) with over 65,000 commercial and industrial customers, as well as more than 85 municipal customers. Veolia Environmental Services (Australia) Pty Ltd provides waste management services to 3.4 million people and 52,500 commercial and industrial clients. In Australia and New Zealand, the firm has 31 recycling and treatment units (recycling 390,108 tonnes of material, collecting 1.97 million tonnes of waste, and treating 3.21 million tonnes of waste in 2007). The company's facilities include compost production, electronics and liquid waste recycling, construction and demolition waste recycling, material recovery and bioreactor landfill technology. Pratt Holdings Proprietary Limited (trading as Visy Industries) is a private packaging and recycling company which manufactures cardboard boxes, plastic containers and other packaging, in Australia and the United States. Visy Recycling (a subsidiary of Visy Industries) operates in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Each week, Visy Recycling collects and/or processes recycling from 2.2 million households, as well as from 20,000 businesses in Australia. Visy Recycling is Australia's largest recycling company, processing 1.47 million tonnes of paper and cardboard, 460,000 tonnes of glass, 47,000 tonnes of plastics and 19,000 tonnes of metals. Visy has 30 recycling facilities and 250 regional recycling agents. J J Richards & Sons Pty Ltd, headquartered in Queensland, is one of the largest privately-owned waste management companies in Australia. The firm has a fleet of 800 vehicles and undertakes 1.5 million waste and recycling collections per week, from 50,000 commercial customers. JJ Richards Engineering Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the firm, designs collection vehicles and systems to maximise resource recovery through compaction reduction, and minimises environmental impacts through use of alternative fuel sources. SembSITA Australia Pty Limited provides waste management services to 43,000 commercial and industrial customers, as well as 800,000 households. Services include recycling domestic, commercial and industrial collection, waste assessment and resource recovery options, sorting, processing such as composting, autoclaving, product destruction, waste stabilisation, engineered landfill operations and transfer facilities. The firm operates in all major capital cities and regional locations. Sims Metal Management is the world's largest metal and electronics recycler. The firm has over 230 operations globally and earns around 80 per cent of its revenue from operations in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, New Zealand and Asia. The firm operates two main businesses, Metal Recycling and Sims Recycling Solutions. The Sims Recycling Solutions business involves the ‘e-recycling’ of information technology equipment and electrical and electronic consumer goods. The Metal Recycling business involves the collection, processing ferrous and non-ferrous metals (primarily in the United States). SteriCorp collects, treats and disposes medical waste. The company is the largest medical waste provider and the only national provider in Australia. The company has 18 per cent of the medical waste collection and disposal market in Australia.

Source: IBISWorld 2009, p. 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 34.

Resource recovery and waste sectors in a carbon-constrained world

The waste sector as a whole generated 14.7MT CO2-e, or 2.5 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, in 2008. Solid waste in landfill contributed 11 MT CO2-e of this amount (75 per cent) (Department of Climate Change 2009a). Greenhouse gas emissions in landfill are caused by the anaerobic degradation of organic matter such as food, cardboard, paper, wood, green waste and sewage sludge. This degradation produces landfill gas which is approximately 55 per cent methane. Methane has a global warming potential of 21 to 25 times that of carbon dioxide and an atmospheric life of 10 to 20 years. This means that abating one tonne of methane delivers a much earlier and greater benefit.

Waste emissions are predicted to increase slightly to 15 MT CO2-e in 2020 and landfill sector emissions are predicted to be 11 MT CO2-e in that year (Department of Climate Change 2009a). The 2020 projections are based on mitigation measures such as organic waste diversion and landfill gas capture accounting for an 18.7 MT CO2-e reduction in 2020 over BAU (Department of Climate Change 2007). This projection requires new investment in alternative waste treatments and landfill gas generation capacity.

The resource recovery and waste sectors are proposed to be covered by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) as currently proposed, noting that the current Bill before Parliament has not been passed Emissions from waste deposited prior to the commencement of the proposed CPRS, known as legacy emissions, would not be included in liabilities under the Scheme (Department of Climate Change 2009b).

Recent analysis indicates that between the proposed commencement of the CPRS in 2011-12 and 2019-2020, solid waste from landfills is projected to create 106.3 MT CO2-e of which 74.54 MT CO2-e or 70 per cent does not attract liability.