The Australian Government is making a significant investment in developing a national tool for non-hazardous waste reporting, the Waste Data Visualisation Platform. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is planning this tool, which will provide a national platform for identifying existing data. Their work is highlighting data gaps that need to be addressed through industry engagement, policy or regulation.
The Department has previously created waste data and reporting standards, but only for hazardous waste.74
Currently, there are no standardised national tool and dataset for the whole waste sector, and no national standards.
Infrastructure Australia has identified key areas of focus for this data coordination, including:
• creating common definitions, particularly for waste with cross-border flows, interstate transfers and hazardous waste
• identifying a common point or points in the process chain where data is collected and reported
• comprehensive data capture from either the generating Jurisdiction or the receiving Jurisdiction, including landfill waste composition75
• developing standards for key waste streams processing and transfer facilities and waste-producing and resource-consuming facilities
• understanding waste-to-product processing cycles76
• producing common waste generation, recycling, energy recovery and disposal metrics.