Impact Priority 3 - Hazardous waste and pollutants | Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub

Overview

Managing hazardous waste and pollutants is essential for protecting human health and the environment. Impact Priority 3 (IP3) is focused on improving the management of persistent and emerging contaminants in wastes and products with recycled content in Australia. Our research is co-designed to provide practical solutions for policymakers, industry and researchers to reduce risks and support effective regulation.

A multi-year research strategy was co-designed to advance our understanding of chemicals in wastes and their effects on the recovery and reuse of resources in circular economy initiatives.

What’s in our waste: Understanding the chemicals in current and emerging waste streams and recovered resources.

What’s the risk: Understanding the risk profile of chemicals in wastes and recovered resources.

How to better inform stakeholders: Enhancing information flows and assessment for improved outcomes and governance for chemicals in wastes and recovered resources and their risks.

Guidelines and frameworks: Development and adoption of nationally validated guidelines and method frameworks for the assessment of chemicals in waste and recovered resources and their risks.

Project 1: Rapid Chemical Screening of Products and Articles

Why?

Wastes, recovered resources and products with recycled content are chemically complex. This makes them difficult to manage. As we move towards a circular economy, we need to accurately measure the potential hazards of chemicals to make sure our recovery and reuse of materials doesn't harm people or the planet.

To do this safely, we need a step-by-step system to identify chemicals in waste and re-used waste materials, and track how they behave in the environment. To achieve this outcome we need to gather high-quality data on chemical identification and how these substances affect sensitive ecosystems and biodiversity.

Who?

During 2026, this project is led by the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences at The University of Queensland.

Project Leader

Dr. Ian ZAMMIT

Project Team

Dr. Xianyu (Fisher) WANG
Dr. Grace DAVIES,
Dr. Brett HAMILTON,
Dr. Ryan SHIELS
Dr. Elvis OKOFFO,
A/Prof. Sarit KASERZON
Prof. Derek MUIR
Prof. Jochen MUELLER,
Prof. Kevin THOMAS

What?

Using identified priority waste materials, the research program is working to:

Using priority waste materials identified through our co-design process, we have developed transferable guidelines, frameworks and methods to advance our understanding of chemicals associated with waste and recovered resources.

Guidelines, frameworks and methods can assist stakeholders in designing relevant and robust sampling and chemical analysis campaigns.

Sampling and analytical campaigns will generate high-quality and traceable data and information related to chemicals of potential concern in complex waste materials and products with recycled content, enabling appropriate risk mitigation and broader reuse uptake.

End of life tyres, electronic and battery waste, and electronic cable sheathing materials produced from recycling are a focus as case study materials.

What’s happening?

The IP3 research program is currently in the last quarter of Research Plan 4. The project is focused on advancing our knowledge of the availability and potential environmental effects of chemicals contained in recycled rubber crumb and products with recycled rubber crumb content.

We are developing new methods to assess the availability and effects of chemicals under conditions that better reflect the application of materials with recycled content. For example, assessing the availability of chemicals in recycled rubber crumb that has been incorporated into products such as pavement and road base using passive leaching methodologies in conjunction with standard leaching tests (e.g., Australian Standard Leaching Protocol). Chemical effects from real solutions generated from passive leaching will be assessed using relevant Australian biodiversity and ecological endpoints and receptors.

Development and validation of new methods to assess the availability of chemicals under conditions and in environments relevant to how the materials will be reused is critical to enabling decision-making about chemicals in products with recycled content.

Project 2: Assessing the Ecotoxicity of Leachates from Tyre Wastes

Overview

This project explores the suitability of using effect-based methods for assessing the ecotoxicity of end of life tyre products.

Why?

Reusing waste material safely is essential for achieving a circular economy. However waste materials (including end of life tyres, discarded electrical and electronic equipment, and batteries), contain chemicals that can leach out of waste and products containing recycled waste. This could expose people and wildlife to hazardous mixtures. Scientists are using New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), including effect-based methods (EBM), to assess the risks of these chemicals in wastes.

This project uses end of life tyres as a case study to test whether EBM are suitable for chemical risk assessment of waste products.

Who?

Project lead:

Professor Frederic Leusch, Griffith University

Project team:

Dr Peta Neale, Griffith University
A/Prof Will Bennett, Griffith University

What?

The project will run in 2026 and includes:

Systematic literature review and report on the ecotoxicity of end of life tyres based on both in vitro and in vivo methods;
Decision making framework to assess possible hazards of end of life tyre products;
Tabulated chemical analysis data and ecotoxicity data on tyre leachates in a re-usable electronic data format produced according to FAIR data principles.

What’s next?

The research findings from the project will:

support policy makers and regulators by establishing whether leachates from waste tyre products could be hazardous to the environment;
inform Government and industry on how any risks from waste tyres products could be rapidly and cost-effectively assessed.