Residential building sites can wash pollutants into the surrounding environment. This includes soil (earth), concrete wash out waste, plaster wash, and general rubbish, polystyrene and food packaging. This pollution can damage ecosystems and reduces water quality impacting recreational activities. It can also block drains and bio retention basins, causing flooding.
The same law applies to small residential building site with fines of up to $11,610.
(Environmental Protection Act 1994 440GZ)
These are our top tips on how you can protect our waterways and increase compliance:
- Prevent Erosion - Keep disturbed and exposed soil covered with turf or landscaping and cover your stockpiles.
- Control Drainage – Install temporary or permanent downpipes as soon as practicable to minimise runoff
- Capture Sediment – Install adequate controls to ensure no sediment and site runoff leaves your site (for example, sediment fence). Install stable site entry/exit (for example, rock pad from the kerb to the slab to prevent workers and vehicles from dirt tracking offsite.
- Stop the litter - Ensure site litter and waste is disposed of appropriately (for example, in a skip bin). Ensure waste that is easily wind dispersed is covered and do not overfill bins.
- Waffle pods: Secure waffle pods so they cannot be blown off site and remove excess waffle pods as soon as practicable.
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