Landfill Levies //
No single State Government publishes levy information in an accessible and accountable manner. Image: Sobrevolando Patagonia/shutterstock.com
What could $2.7B do for recycling? By: Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group EVERY STATE OF AUSTRALIA NOW RAISES landfill levies, with the exception of the ACT and NT (Table 1). The ACT incorporates a “waste to landfill fee” into the gate fee of the Mugga Lane landfill, but it is not declared as a levy and its exact value is not made public. The reasons the levies are raised on waste disposed to landfill are generally linked to: • Changing the market economics of recycling by making landfill more expensive; and • Raising funds to support innovation and reform in waste and recycling. Here are some examples and justifications: NSW’s states that “…the contribution aims to
reduce the amount of waste being landfilled and promote recycling and resource recovery.” Meanwhile Queensland’s reasoning is that “The strategy seeks to minimise waste being sent to landfills and encourage increased recycling.” And that the levy aims to: • Reduce the amount of waste going to landfill; • encourage waste avoidance; • provide a source of funding to enable better resource recovery practices • provide certainty and security of feedstocks for advanced technology; and • facilitate industry investment in resource recovery infrastructure.” Over on the west coast, WA states “The waste levy acts as an economic instrument to reduce waste
WASTE LEVY RATEES NSW
VIC
QLD
SA
TAS
WA
ACT
$174.20 /t $100.30 rural
$169.79 /t $84.78 rural
$125 /t $97 rural
$166 /t $83 regional
$45.84 /t
$88 /t
$60 /t
Table 1. Waste levy rates across Australia in 2025/26.
28 INSIDEWASTE JUN/JUL 2026
Estimated by MRA
NT
$0
to landfill by increasing the price of landfill disposal and generates funds for a range of waste and environmental purposes. The waste levy plays a key role in achieving the objectives of Western Australia’s Waste avoidance and resource recovery strategy 2030 by providing a disincentive to dispose of waste to landfill and by generating revenue to fund programs which support the strategy.” Finally, in Tasmania, they’re saying “Funds raised from the landfill levy are being invested directly into the waste and resource recovery sector, supporting existing industry to reduce waste, and creating new jobs and business for Tasmanians.” Note that all of them include arguments about funding reform, innovation and investment in recycling, to make our economy more economically efficient and sustainable. Collectively across Australia, the levies raise a surprising $2.7 Billion per year (Table 2). This is an estimate because Governments don’t publish the waste data for two years after collecting the levy data, so we had to use 2024 waste-to-landfill data to make these calculations. We have also applied population statistics for metro and regions (as a proxy for tonnes to landfill) to apply differential levy rates, to estimate the total State levy revenues. Only NSW publishes the levy funds raised in the Budget Papers so everything else is estimated. However, we won’t be out by much in our calculations. So, the total revenue from landfill levies collected in Australia (excluding the ACT) is now $2.7B per year. Finally, I am sure you will be interested to know just how much of the levy funds are being reinvested in waste and recycling innovation, investment and kit. This section comes with a caveat. No single Daily news updates at www.insidewaste.com.au