SA Disaster Waste Management Capability Plan
Rawtec worked on the South Australian disaster waste framework, including this capability plan and the companion guidelines. The plan is issued by Green Industries SA for the State Emergency Management Committee under the Emergency Management Act 2004. Version dated 30 November 2021.
Summary published
The capability plan is the governance layer. It says who is responsible for disaster waste in South Australia, at which phase, and what has to be in place before an event rather than after it.
It sits above the guidelines. Where the guidelines tell you what to do with a pile of burnt roofing, the plan tells you whose job that is and who pays for it.
Participating agencies
Phases from preparedness to post-recovery
Maximum interval between reviews
The Act it is made under
What the plan covers
One functional lead, thirteen agencies
Green Industries SA is the functional lead. The participating agencies are the Engineering, Local Government, Logistics and Public Information Functional Support Groups, the SA EPA, PIRSA, the Department for Environment and Water, the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, the Department of Premier and Cabinet, SAFECOM, SA Health, SafeWork SA and SAPOL.
Five phases, each with its own objective
Preparedness sets up the arrangements and community information. Response handles acute waste issues while rescue operations continue. Early recovery provides public information and stands up temporary storage sites. Recovery runs the full programme. Post-recovery monitors environmental and health impacts and evaluates how the operation went.
What counts as disaster waste
Debris from damaged property and infrastructure, materials deployed during the response such as sandbags, relief waste including unwanted donations and medical waste, demolished building waste, agricultural waste and animal carcasses.
The trigger for state support
The state provides operational support only when both conditions hold at once: affected communities lack capacity, and the waste poses high consequences to human health, economic assets including agriculture, the environment or community recovery.
Where responsibility sits by default
Landowners, tenants and those responsible for animals and livestock are expected to take reasonable steps to prepare and to hold adequate insurance where possible. The state may assume responsibility with or without the landowner’s consent only under an emergency declaration.
The gaps the plan itself identifies
The plan states outright that a disaster will overwhelm existing waste management systems and infrastructure and will need resources beyond local and regional capacity.
A disaster debris estimation tool and a database of potential interim storage sites are both listed as things to develop and maintain. Neither existed as a completed inventory at the time of writing.
The plan identifies the need for a system to monitor disaster debris from source to disposal, to limit illegal and unsafe dumping.
Work with interstate jurisdictions and insurers on a national code of practice for cost sharing is listed as needed, along with a review of funding arrangements and payment mechanisms by Treasury and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
The approach is to begin with two trial zones and develop a template other zones can adopt.
The plan covers large-scale disasters that are protracted or need complex coordination, and solid waste including non-hazardous, hazardous and medical. It excludes waste from biosecurity events such as foot-and-mouth disease, though incidental biosecurity waste from other events is in scope.
Related documents
Rawtec wrote the guidelines that sit underneath this plan.
The full plan sets out each agency’s role phase by phase.
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