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Sustainability Victoria refocusing but waste still a priority: Krpan (AWRE)

Jun 16, 2015

The Victorian government has committed to refocusing Sustainability Victoria (SV), with plans for the organisation to better support the community with climate change but SV CEO Stan Krpan said waste and resource recovery will remain a priority.

Sustainability Victoria CEO Stan Krpan.Krpan will be giving the opening address at this year’s Australasian Waste and Recycling Expo (AWRE) in August and as part of his presentation, he will be detailing what SV’s broader context and priorities for the future entail.

“The way I see it is, this is a broader context for our work, to focus on climate change. It’s re-engaging with the community about what the aspirations and priorities of the community are around climate change,” Krpan told Inside Waste News.

“But we’re committed to maintaining the focus on what we’ve been doing over the last three to four years around waste and resource recovery, particularly around our planning and program work. There will not be a dilution but we see this new focus as adding to what we do.”

Krpan noted that one of the government’s priorities is to increase community engagement, a theme he said came through strongly in the government’s recently released Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan or SWRRIP (see Related Stories).

Although the draft plan was released in 2013, the government finalised and launched the SWRRIP on Friday. This will be followed by the development of seven Regional Waste and Resource Recovery Implementation Plans.

Given the plan maps the long-term trends in waste generation, population and waste across Victoria and details the investment opportunities to improve the state’s waste and resource recovery infrastructure network, Krpan said it will be a “real feature” in his presentation at the Melbourne expo.

“I’ll be talking about what’s next for Victoria in terms of regional implementation plans, our focus on organics, what are we doing around waste education, and some of our other programs,” Krpan said.

“There’s also a much stronger focus in Victoria now around community engagement and that’s a very strong theme that has come through in the infrastructure plan. Also, in the development of the regional implementation plans, the government really wants the community to have a voice in the future of waste and recycling and in fact all environmental issues and that the community has a way of inputting into decision making.”

Victoria’s plan to ban e-waste to landfill
The government’s commitment to ban e-waste to landfill has been widely discussed and Krpan said the recently released SWRRIP has been updated to include data around local government e-waste infrastructure, including depots, drop-offs and transfer stations as well as current volumes.

Krpan said he will be sharing with AWRE delegates what SV is doing to progress the government’s plan and revealed that the ban will be implemented in stages.

“The government has indicated that it wants to work in partnership with local government around planning a staged implementation of the e-waste ban so that it’s done in smooth way,” Krpan said.

“Obviously, there’s a dependency on the announcement by Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt about what’s happening with the National TV and Computer Scheme (see Related Stories), so we’ll be working with councils over the next year and then we’ll make some firmer commitments around dates and those sorts of things.

“There’s no formal date yet but certainly we’re hoping to be in a better position later on this year.”

Krpan will also use AWRE as a platform to report on some of SV’s achievements over the last few years, particularly projects that have come to fruition in the last 12 months around materials efficiency, infrastructure, market development and he will be revealing SV’s priorities for infrastructure and a range of materials moving forward.

AWRE will be held on August 12 and 13 at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre.

As part of the event, delegates will be able to join industry leaders as they debate and discuss key issues facing the industry, learn from case studies and discover the latest in government policy through seminar sessions held over the two days.

Sessions include “E-waste futures – the role of regulation, landfill bans and more” and “What does effective engagement look like: building a ‘social licence’ to operate in the waste and resource recovery.”

To find out more or to book your seminar pass, click here.

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