While Australia grapples with the flow-on effects of China’s ban on imported material for recycling, landfills in Melbourne’s west continue to grow. Residents say their concerns have been ignored and brushed off by the state Environment Protection Authority (EPA).

Our new report, Raising a stink, details stories from western suburbs communities that are struggling for environmental justice while having huge rubbish tips and toxic waste dumps imposed on them.

Meanwhile, the Victorian government has more than $500 million sitting in the State Treasury from landfill levies. It is obligated to use this to fund environmental protection and best practice waste management.

We are calling on the Victorian Government to invest this money, derived from landfill levies, to:

• Give legal priority to avoiding unnecessary waste in the first place
• Educate and reward Victorians for avoiding waste
• Provide financial incentives for 100% recyclable packaging and for alternative technologies that recover resources
• Promote decentralised waste and resource recovery systems to more fairly spread pollution burdens and reduce transport impacts
• Actively promote the separation of waste at its source
• Increase Victoria’s landfill levies to bring them into line with New South Wales, thereby making resource recovery the preferred business option

There are many ways Victorians could be better supported to manage our waste and recover its resource value (including energy and water), instead of building vulnerable and risky ‘waste mountains’.

Please add you name to our petition to help reduce the amount of waste that Victoria is currently pushing into landfills.