The EPA's Role

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The Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) is the State agency primarily responsible for monitoring, regulating, and reporting on the state’s air quality including nearby the BRG’s activities. 

Underpinning the EPA is a range of legislation, including the Environment Protection Act 2017 (the Act) and various state environment protection policies and legislation initiatives that incorporate national standards, requirements and guidelines on ambient air quality. 

EPA’s Better Environment Plan (BEP) initiative is designed to facilitate voluntary agreements between EPA and industry participants. Participation in a BEP provides participants the opportunity to trial innovative solutions to environmental issues and exceed their environmental obligations. BEPs offer a way to think differently when approaching environmental problems. They encourage collaboration between participants and interested parties to find solutions to complex environmental issues. 

BRG participants have, over the past three years, partnered with the EPA to develop Victoria’s first BEP relating to dust mitigation activities at the Brooklyn site.

The key human health and environmental objective of the BEP is as follows:

• Investigate collaborative and innovative actions between the BEP participants aimed at mitigating the emissions to air of particulate matter (PM) from the Brooklyn Site. 
• Through the BEP, the individual companies within the BRG have committed to a number of new Group collective actions to meet the BEP’s key objective and improve outcomes for all stakeholders. This is in addition to the current initiatives which have been implemented by the BRG members to reduce dust and the risk of impacts to the community.
• The objectives and actions outlined in the BEP were developed with reference to the Victorian Government’s Clean Air For All Victorians Strategy (2022) and the recommendations of the Inner West Air Quality Community Reference report, Group Air Pollution in Melbourne’s Inner West: taking direct action to reduce our community’s exposure (2020).

Maintaining clean air is important for the health and wellbeing of people and is a matter of considerable concern for communities. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported compelling evidence supporting the significant correlation between poor air quality and negative impacts on health. 

The earth’s air is primarily composed of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapour and various inert gases. However, some pollutants generated through both human and natural processes, such as ozone and particulate matter, contaminate the air and can have adverse effects on the health of people and the environment. 

 Air quality in Melbourne’s industrial west has historically been a source of concern for the local communities over many years. Recycling of C&D waste is undertaken by mechanical crushing and sorting, which by its very nature can create PM (commonly known as dust) – which in turn can impact air quality on site and in the immediate vicinity. BRG members are aware of the potential impacts this dust may have on local air shed quality.

An independent analysis carried out by environmental engineering firm, Synergetics Pty Ltd, in 2021 of publicly available EPA data from the Brooklyn air quality monitoring station has demonstrated that one of the biggest determinants of air quality at the Brooklyn Site and surrounding areas is weather. Hot, windy conditions can naturally present challenges for operators trying to mitigate the onsite generation, and offsite migration of, dust.

We know that a strong northeasterly wind will increase the risk of offsite migration of Particulate Matter (PM) as there is a direct line between the BRG sites and the nearby residential estate. This risk is further escalated on hot dry days when waste moisture levels are low, leading to more airborne particulate matter being produced. This is demonstrated in the recorded air quality data which shows concentrations reported in summer approximately 60% higher than those reported in winter. This highlights the need for dust suppression approaches to be designed with the local airshed and climate in mind. 

PM readings at the EPA Brooklyn monitoring station are impacted by many sources including:

• A complex mixture of many hundreds of industries and several thousand homes located within three kilometres of the monitoring station;
• Nearby road traffic especially the thousands of heavy vehicles traveling along the adjacent West Gate Freeway;
• Altona North landfill and the integrated chemical processing businesses to the south of the monitoring station; and
• Major infrastructure programs, especially associated with the Westgate Tunnel Project.