Toxic waste producers are fighting suggestions their discharges into Victoria’s sewers should be open to greater public scrutiny.
The campaign by industrial customers and water businesses puts them at odds with Victoria’s Department of Sustainability and Environment, which has called for greater transparency in the trade waste sector.
Amid several proposals, the department has raised the prospect of disclosing details when customers are granted ”variations” from their standard trade waste agreement. Companies apply for variations when they want to expel a type of substance, or volume of substance, different to their normal discharge.
Statistics show 267 variations were approved for large industrial customers in Melbourne last year and that tally was almost 900 over the past three years. Even more variations were issued to smaller, lower impact businesses - often involved in food and hospitality services - and the variations often last for a period of three years.
City West Water, which issues the largest number of variations, has argued emphatically against the details of companies’ trade waste being publicly disclosed.
”Making trade waste agreements open to the public is unlikely to deliver any value, but very likely to lead to debate and confusion,” said City West Water, in a recent submission.
The retailer said the information could be misused by the media and others, and said the recent trend to publicly name Victoria’s top 200 water users was a good example of public disclosure going wrong.
”Similar schemes (reporting of Top 200 water users) have not resulted in increased understanding about industrial water use in Melbourne with a high percentage of residents persisting with the view that industry is the largest water-using sector.”
Other water retailers agreed; Melbourne’s South-East Water said disclosure would be ”counterproductive” while Goulburn Valley Water said such a move could reveal commercially sensitive information.
Australian Industry Group declared it would not support greater public disclosure, while the Textile Rental and Laundry Association of Victoria said it did not see any advantage through ”public naming of companies”. Only Melbourne Water indicated it was happy to see greater public disclosure.
Water retailers stressed that the discharges went into the sewer system, not Victoria’s rivers, and the contaminants remained in a closed system until arriving at sewage treatment plants such as Werribee and Carrum.
But more than 20 per cent of contaminants that arrive at Melbourne’s sewage treatment plants come from unidentified sources, and in recent years water treated at Werribee has been problematic when used in agriculture.
The debate over greater transparency in the industrial sector is part of the Essential Services Commission’s work to prepare a new trade waste management code for Victoria.
A draft of the new code is expected in coming months.
