The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has registered the Waste and Recycling Industry Code of Practice to drive better safety outcomes for the waste and recycling industry and businesses that use those services.
The Code, which was sponsored by the Waste and Recycling Industry Association of Queensland, has been produced to support the waste and recycling industry and associated businesses in complying with the primary duty.
NHVR Chief of Safety and Productivity David Hourigan said the Code, also known as the Waste & Recycling Code (WRC), identifies hazards and recommends effective, practical control measures that parties in the Chain of Responsibility (CoR) can implement to eliminate or minimise risk.
“Waste and recycling transport is an intrinsically hazardous operational environment, and to ensure all operations are safe, these hazards must be understood and controlled,” Mr Hourigan said.
“We have collated feedback directly from a broad range of industry experts to ensure the WRC is comprehensive, up to date and can be utilised as a practical guide for anyone who uses or supplies waste and recycling transport services.”
The WRC addresses well-known hazards such as spaces being shared by pedestrians and heavy vehicles, as well as emerging risks such as the presence of lithium batteries in household waste.
An appendix within the WRC also provides detailed guidance about the safe restraint of certain types of waste bins.
Mr Hourigan said the WRC makes clear that CoR applies to all off-road parties in the supply chain, including businesses and local councils that work with waste transporters, that manage waste disposal sites, or that produce, collect, process, or dispose of waste and recycling materials.
“By combining industry knowledge and experience in proposing measures to reduce risk that can be implemented at each stage of the transport journey – from collecting and sorting, to transit and unloading – we can help make the waste and recycling transport task safer, benefiting not only those in the supply chain, but all other road users and communities.”
Industry can access the Waste and Recycling Code of Practice here.
