Deadline: 25-Jul-23
The Sustainability Victoria (SV) is pleased to announce a call for applications for third round of the Circular Economy Infrastructure Fund (CEIF): Hazardous Waste to build the capacity, capability, and resilience of Victoria’s resource recovery sector to increase local reprocessing of hazardous waste and improve the use and quality of recycled materials to make new products.
The hazardous waste stream will fund infrastructure projects focused on safe management and high value recovery (where possible) of low-level contaminated soils, Reportable Priority Wastes (RPW) and specified priority wastes.
Applicants have the opportunity to propose both proven and innovative technology solutions for the Victorian hazardous waste sector.
Funding is available to industry and local government that have been operating for a minimum of 2 years in Australia and either operates an existing hazardous waste reprocessing, recycling or treatment facility in Victoria or are proposing a new hazardous waste reprocessing, recycling, or treatment facility to be located in Victoria.
Fund Objectives
- Projects must meet 2 or more of the fund objectives:
- Increase the recovery and local reprocessing of hazardous waste, and to manage those materials in line with the waste hierarchy.
- Increase the use and quality of recycled materials for remanufacturing and to make new products.
- Increase economic development opportunities such as jobs, economic performance and growth of precincts.
- Reduce the amount and impact of waste going to landfill.
Funding Information
- Total available grant funding for Round 3 is $4,500,000.
- Notification of outcome will be delayed for funding requests of $2 million or more as these requests have additional approval requirements.
Co-contribution
- Applicants are required to meet the following minimum cash contribution:
- Industry must co-contribute at least $2 for every $1 funded.
- Local government must co-contribute at least $1 for every $1 funded.
- Investment leverage will be a key consideration as part of application assessments. Higher investment from the Applicant will be looked upon more favourably.
- Co-contribution must be financial (cash) and cannot include In-kind contributions.
- Other grant funding including from federal, state, or local government cannot be counted toward Applicant’s co-contribution.
Target Materials
- All wastes currently categorised as RPW and some priority wastes as listed below, excluding those covered by other outcomes.
- Refer to the Environment Protection Authority’s Waste classification assessment protocol to determine if your waste is RPW.
- RPW including but not limited to:
- low -level contaminated soils
- asbestos contaminated soils
- solvents (including wastes from laundry and dry-cleaning process)
- grease-trap wastes (K110)
- clinical wastes (R100, R120, R130, R140)
- biosolids (K400-H)
- waste oil and water mixtures (J120)
- asbestos containing materials (ACMs).
- Priority waste limited to:
- treated timbers (K310-H)
- biosolids (K-400-NH)
- lithium batteries
- brominated and flame-retardant plastics (BFRs).
What will be funded?
- Funding aims to:
- diversify and attract new investment to increase the quality of hazardous wastes recovered for recycling
- attract reprocessing infrastructure to increase the quantity of materials re-entering manufacturing streams and improving the circularity of materials.
- Funding will focus on:
- capital purchases, installation and commissioning of infrastructure or equipment
- pre-construction (site preparation) such as site clearing, earthworks or site accessibility works directly associated with the installation of new equipment
- construction/modification of buildings to house the new equipment (pre-construction works through to commissioning stage).
- Funding will be provided for:
- new equipment, new facility or upgrade of existing facilities to increase domestic recovery of contaminated soils, RPW and specified priority wastes (see target materials list below in this section).
- Projects must:
- be located in Victoria
- be commissioned and operational/completed by 31 May 2025
- meet regulatory or planning requirements and are not being undertaken to comply with regulation or a regulatory notice or order
- have outcomes that are directly attributable to the SV grant funding
- not be seeking funding for research, demonstration and development
- not have received funding or support for the same activities from other sources.
Outcomes
- CEIF Hazardous Waste Round 3 is seeking projects that will achieve one or more of the following outcomes:
- Diversion of wastes from Category B landfill disposal.
- Increased diversion of low-level (Category C and D) contaminated soils (and spoils) from landfill disposal.
- Increased recovery of solvents and other hazardous wastes for reuse, recycling, or energy recovery.
- Improved management of hazardous wastes for reuse, recycling, or energy recovery; including short-term storage, and recovery or treatment facilities. Short-term storage infrastructure will only be funded for projects targeting both storage and recovery infrastructure.
Eligibility Criteria
- An eligible organisation must be one of the following organisation types:
- Industry
- Local government
- That have existing hazardous waste reprocessing, recycling or treatment facility in Victoria or are proposing a new hazardous waste reprocessing, recycling or treatment waste facility to be located in Victoria and have been operating for a minimum of 2 years in Australia.
- Applicants must:
- have a current Australian Business Number (ABN). If the Applicant is a Trust, the Trust as the trading entity must meet this requirement
- have a joint venture partner with an ABN if a joint venture
- have been operating for a minimum of 2 years in Australia by the application closing date (to be validated by the date that the organisation’s ABN is active from). Except that if the Applicant is a joint venture company created for the project, or a Related Entity of an established and experienced industry operator, in which case SV may choose to accept the Applicant’s eligibility, but if so, SV will require the Related Entity, the experienced industry operator, to pass due diligence checks.
- be able to demonstrate financial viability to undertake the project (must meet or exceed the minimum co-contribution requirements)
- agree to comply with the Terms of Participation in Grant Programs
- agree to comply with the funding terms and conditions:
- for grants $50,000 or less read the Short-form grant funding agreement
- for grants more than $50,000 read the General grant funding agreement
- submit their Fair Jobs Code Pre-Assessment Certificate number with their application if applying for $500,000 or more (exclusive of GST). At a minimum proof of application for the Certificate must be submitted with their grant application if Certificate has not been received when application closes
- demonstrate financial capability to undertake the project
- demonstrate market supply of the material feedstocks and demand for the processed products. Applications with secured feedstock and end markets will be assessed more favourably by the assessment panel.
- Eligible Applicants may be consortia, however SV will only contract with one organisation. The consortium must name a lead partner who will enter into a funding agreement with SV (usually the partner purchasing the infrastructure). Research institutions and individuals are not eligible for funding.
- If the Applicant is a Trust, the funding agreement must be executed by the Trustee of the Trust for example XYZ Pty Ltd as The Trustee for the XYZ Trust. The Trust as the trading entity must meet all the eligibility requirements of the fund (for example ABN).
- Demonstration of a stable and ongoing funding source will be considered favourably in the assessment of not-for-profit organisations.
- Funding will be targeted at projects that are unlikely to proceed without government financial assistance or may have the financial means to only proceed at a much later date or with limited scope.
- Applicants who do not agree with the Grant Funding Agreement Terms and Conditions will be asked to provide full details of proposed amendments that would render the contractual provision acceptable to the Applicant in the SmartyGrants application form. Applicants should note that significant or substantive variations will not be viewed favourably unless the Applicant is able to demonstrate the necessity for such variations. Should an Applicant be successful, no further amendments to SV’s standard terms and conditions will be considered beyond the variations included in the application form.
- Sustainability Victoria encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations.
- Sustainability Victoria manages several grants. Although you can apply for more than one grant for a project, you can only receive one grant.
For more information, visit CEIF.