How confident are you that you’re paying the right amount of waste levy each month? We just saved a Queensland waste facility from paying $5,000 more than necessary on their latest levy return.

The Resource Hub team supports facilities to better “own their waste administration” when it comes to Waste Levy, as the reality is that a small change in site layout and operational process can have a large impact on waste levy liability.

In this instance, from July 2020, a handful of our client’s customers who had previously disposed of all waste in landfill were now being redirected to the Resource Recovery Area to allow for improved sorting. A disconnect between the gatehouse team and the administrative team had meant that this change wasn’t being reflected in the transactional data and waste levy returns for the site. It was only when the regulatory return was reviewed by the manager prior to submission that it was noted that the waste levy liability appeared a little high.

The team wasn’t able to clearly identify what had led to the change so Council picked up the phone and gave us a call. A 30-minute review of the transactional data behind the scenes highlighted the anomaly, which in turn highlighted a need to update the transactional system’s predefined data and also add a few checks and balances into the business processes of Council.

A half hour taken by a fresh set of eyes identified a $5,000 overcalculation in levy for the month. An additional review of prior months indicated that the impact extended to 6 months at approximately $27,000.

A few opportunities to improve rigour in Council’s approval and reconciliation approach were also identified and with a few hours of effort, the transactions were rectified, waste levy returns redrafted and provided to Council with a full schedule of changes to support any internal or state audit requirement.

Often “admin” is a term that we use to cover many bases: data oversight, someone’s job title, administrative duties, the repeatable tasks we complete each day to keep ourselves organised. The word itself can have both positive and negative connotations, but its importance should not be overlooked.

When it comes to Waste Levy admin, it’s important to ensure that administrative functions are experienced, understand the regulatory environment and obligations, and support the requirement to administer what is often one of the largest monthly costs for a waste management facility.

Our Regulatory specialists are the most experienced in the business of identifying and resolving waste levy overpayments (or underpayments!) in your data returns. We help Council’s and waste operators save on unnecessary mistakes so that they can invest more in local projects and improvements at the facility level.

If you’d like to find out more about Resource Hub’s remote waste administration and regulatory services get in touch with our team here to get your regulatory return right this month, and every other month.