Landfill Levy Imposition on Construction and Demolition Waste: Australian Stakeholders’ Perceptions

With increased construction activities in capital cities of Australia, the sustainable management of construction and demolition (C&D) has become an important item in the federal and state government agendas. According to the universally accepted concept of waste hierarchy waste disposal is the worst preferred waste management option due to environmental issues. Currently, in most Australian jurisdictions, a landfill levy is applied to discourage waste disposal and to further encourage waste recovery. However, there is an ongoing debate as to whether the levy regime could achieve the desired outcome. Therefore, this study, funded by the Australian Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre, explored the effectiveness of the current landfill levy across Australian jurisdictions. The paper presents the findings of this study that were obtained from a questionnaire survey aiming to capture the main C&D waste management stakeholders on landfill taxing imposition in Australia. The study collected 132 responses from professionals in the construction industry and other industries dealing with C&D waste management and resource recovery. The results demonstrated that those who believed in market incentive approaches outweigh people that were in favour of pecuniary impost approach. Among those who favoured pecuniary imposts, almost 90% of participants agreed with the effectiveness of landfill levies in any waste management system. Other results provided a useful insight into the actual implications of the current levy scheme. It is expected that the findings in this study contribute to developing sound policies that provide a level field for all key stakeholders and to ensure that resource recovery is further encouraged.