A late year collection run in Southern NSW and Western Victoria has seen more than 4400L/kg of unwanted chemicals being disposed of through ChemClear.
It was the program’s 21st collection in NSW and included pickups through Victoria on its way to and from its Melbourne depot.
The collection covered 21 council areas travelling more than 2600km through Rochester, Barham, Goulburn and Braidwood before looping back down to Griffith and finishing off in Brooklyn, Victoria.
2,337L/kg of chemical was collected for free by ChemClear.
These chemicals were registered as Group 1 where a 4c per litre levy has been applied on the products at the point of sale by manufacturers signed to the program.
2,084L/kg of Group 2 chemicals was also collected.
These products are from unknown and historic manufacturers or companies not participating in the ChemClear and drumMUSTER stewardship programs.
A fee per litre for disposal is applied to these chemicals as they sit outside the stewardship programs scope and therefore no levy has been paid to support their collection and disposal..
Livestock farmer Peter Jackman delivered 78L of Group 1 and 46L of Group 2 for collection last month.
He said he inherited the shed full of chemicals after purchasing land in Wodonga about a year ago.
“We bought a block which was once a peach farm. We had the shed full of chemicals, so I did a bit of investigating on the internet and found ChemClear,” he said.
“They were mostly herbicides, pesticides with a variety of other stuff. Some of it was nasty stuff with a high level of toxicity.”
ChemClear National Program Manager Lisa Nixon said the program continues to offer registrants opportunities to responsibly dispose of their chemicals.
“We are introducing regular regional collection runs into NSW and Victoria as our footprint grows nationally,” she said.
“There is a growing awareness of the impact of positive and negative rural practices on the environment in the agricultural industry so agvet chemical users should ensure they take all reasonable steps to dispose of their wastes effectively and environmentally.”
For each collection run, ChemClear relies on councils to provide locations for farmers and chemical users to drop off their registered chemicals.
Strathbogie Shire Council Waste Management Engineer Darren Ritchie said they’ve been helping out ChemClear with drop-off points for a few years
“We try and do our best to help. We’re more than happy to provide a site for ChemClear any time in the future. Everything is getting disposed of correctly, which is really good,” he said.
Lisa said the program works on a pre-registration basis. The more registrations, the more chance ChemClear will book a collection in a region.
“I encourage any farmer or business storing unwanted agvet chemicals to sort them out and register them with ChemClear for the next round of regional collections,” she said
“We don’t know what’s stored in your shed and we only work off the data that has been logged on our booking line to schedule collection points. We can’t stress enough how important it is to register your obsolete chemicals with ChemClear to be included in the next collection in your region.”
The recent collection brings the total number of chemicals collected in NSW to 103,146.54L/kg since 2003 and national total to 392,387L/kg.
Ninety eight per cent of the chemical collected is used as an alternative fuel source in the manufacturing of cement.
Most of the material is destroyed in kilns which reach temperatures in excess of 1800°C.
To register your unwanted chemicals for ChemClear’s next run call the hotline on 1800 008 182 or visit www.chemclear.com.au.
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