Nancy Chang, the NSW EPA executive director of regulatory policy, initiatives and advice, has hinted that the Authority is looking to mandate that state and local government construction contracts must have a certain percentage of recycled content in them.
Speaking at the Australian Waste and Recycling Expo (AWRE) being held at the ICC in Sydney, Chang said the EPA is thinking of invoking the Protection of the Environment policy on procurement. Chang said this is a unique to NSW in that the legislation allows for that once the policy is established, it binds all New South Wales government agencies – from local government, ministers and other agencies – to the policy.
“What we will be doing is presenting a draft protection of the environment policy,” she said. “What that will do is it will ask all government agencies to consider in infrastructure procurement, as a priorty, to use remanufactured, substitute and recycled materials derived from waste streams generated within New South Wales, [in their projects].”
Aside the benefits of providing markets for recycled/reused materials, Chang said the reason for the policy initiative was also to incentivise low carbon technologies.
Read more: AFGC’s Barden welcomes 60 M in funding from federal government
“We do acknowledge and we have heard from industry loud and clear, that New South Wales should lead the way if we are serious about circular economy,” she said. “New South Wales, in terms of infrastructure and procurement, accounts for nearly one third of all infrastructure and procurement for the state.”
Chang said that the Authority has sent letters to all heads of agencies as well as all ministers to advise them that the EPA will be doing consultation, as well as a draft Gazette on the policy. This means that all future infrastructure projects procured by New South Wales Government will need to – on an “if not, why not?” basis, procure recycled materials that have “good carbon abatement objectives”.
“There will be an extensive consultation period,” she said. “We are partnering with Infrastructure New South Wales. Obviously we are having lots of conversations with Transport New South Wales, and education as well. Educution has a big pipeline of schools to be built. We’ll also be talking to our health counterparts so this will be a space to watch as we embark on a consultation period this year.”