Major overhaul to environmental legislation: What does it mean for you?

The changes

Penalties for many environmental crimes will double under the Environment Protection Legislation Amendment (Stronger Regulation and Penalties) Bill 2024, introduced on 14 March 2024.

Recent criminal investigations into asbestos-contaminated mulch, and a general need to strengthen penalties and deterrence, prompted these changes.

The Bill includes the following increased penalties:

• Doubled maximum penalties for Tier 1 Offences, with individual maximum penalties rising to $2 million and corporate maximum penalties rising to $10 million.
• Doubled maximum penalties for Tier 2 Offences, with individual maximum penalties rising to $500,000 and corporate maximum penalties rising to $2 million.
• Doubled penalties for asbestos waste offences, with individual penalties rising to $1 million and corporate penalties rising to $4 million.

The Bill also grants the following powers to the EPA and the Land and Environment Court:

• Greater investigative powers to the EPA;
• Power to the Land and Environment Court to ban serial offenders from applying for environment protection licences;
• Power to recall products that may be contaminated, to prevent the spread of harmful substances across entire supply-chains;
• Powers to allow a waste classifiers’ accreditation scheme to be created;
• Greater powers against small scale illegal dumping, including capacity for verbal directions to remove waste (given either by EPA, council or land managers);
• Establishment of a public ‘name and shame’ process to issue public warnings about poor environmental performers.

What does this mean for you?

These amendments clearly signal an increased focus on environmental crime, and in particular, greater scrutiny on waste-related activities.

Whilst the EPA has always had the power to cast a wide net when investigating and prosecuting waste offences, the Bill specifically empowers the EPA to investigate the entire material/waste supply chain, and to order product recalls of potentially contaminated material on an urgent basis.

These sweeping powers make it even more important for businesses who may be on the receiving end of recycled or reprocessed materials to ensure the integrity of all generators and operators along the supply chain.