It sounded like a good idea at the time ! The environmental people were concerned at the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and one of the sources was council landfills. Not only carbon dioxide, but methane being generated by rotting garbage and food waste.
It became a target to promote recycling and reduce the volume of rubbish going into landfills - and the way to do that was deemed to tax the volume to encourage conservation and recycling.
We created a " monster ". This " waste tax " has been steadily rising, and it is about to leap a whopping 16% this financial year. As a result, council tip fees are going through the roof - and some councils are charging $ 265 a tonne for the stuff you take to the tip in your trailer !
This tax raised $ 479 million for the state government last year, and the majority of that disappeared into " consolidated revenue ". A tax intended to fund conservation quickly became just another way of satisfying the government's insatiable need for more money.
Now we are reaching the ridiculous situation that some councils can not afford to dump the rubbish from their bins in their own landfills. Because of this tax, it is cheaper to truck this rubbish to another state - where the tax levied is lower.
This waste tax is a state tax - and it stands to reason that states with a lower population do not have the same volume problem when it comes to rubbish. In particular, Queensland is becoming the destination for New South Wales rubbish because of this anomaly.
It seems that we are stuck between two contrasting needs. One of the prime reasons for having councils is for the creation of a place to get rid of resident's rubbish. We are taxing that out of existence - and yet any move to reduce the " waste tax " to a sane level will deprive a cash strapped state government of revenue they can not afford to lose.
To do nothing - encourages an increase in illegal roadside dumping !
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