Trade waste billing and charges
In this article
The charges applicable to your business depend on the conditions in your trade waste permit. Please check your permit for the charges that apply to you.
Trade waste charges
The charges below are applicable for the current financial year. Please note that your trade waste charges are not subject to GST - GST is only applicable for sampling and inspection activities.
Our charges are divided into 3 components, so you're only charged for what you use:
- Permit charge
- Quality-quantity charges
- Activity-based charges
Permit charge
An annual permit charge applies to all businesses with a trade waste permit. This charge covers our costs of administering the permit license.
Permit charge: $252.32 per year
Quality-quantity charges
We charge a quality-quantity or usage charge for businesses discharging large volumes and/or high-strength trade waste. The charge is based on your trade waste's volume and quality (or strength).
The charge covers the cost of treating your trade waste discharged to the sewer system.
The rates for individual wastewater quality are detailed in the quality-quantity charges table.
For significant volumes and/or high-strength trade waste, we may do a metering and sampling assessment to determine your charges.
Fixed industry quality-quantity charges
For some industries, quality-quantity charges are fixed and calculated from a wastewater model:
- care facilities such as nursing homes and hostels
- hospitals
- commercial car washes
- fast food restaurants (except those within shopping centres or food halls).
If you operate one of the industries listed above, please contact us at tradewaste@watercorporation.com.au or 13 13 95 to learn more about the charges that may apply and how they're calculated.
Open area charge
This annual charge applies to unroofed wash bays and bin wash areas with floor drains connected to the sewer system. It covers the costs associated with the volume of stormwater going into the sewer system from your wash area and is calculated based on the surface area (in square metres) of the unroofed ground that drains into your wash bay.
Open area charge: $1.76 per square metre
Activity-based charges
These charges are based on any activity we need to undertake to administer your trade waste permit and discharge conditions.
Establishment charge
We charge an hourly rate for assessing your application and determining the conditions under which you can safely discharge your wastewater to the sewer system.
New permit assessments: $150.13 per hour
FOGMan charge
If your business is required to install a grease arrestor to pre-treat greasy wastewater, an annual charge will be applicable per individual grease arrestor. This charge covers the costs of operating our fats, oil and grease management (FOGMan) program.
FOGMan charge: $100.81 per individual grease arrestor per year.
Inspection charge
We may need to inspect your premises as part of our assessment of your application or if an inspection is initiated when you need to change your business operations or plumbing configurations or to have your grease arrestor pump out frequency reassessed.
Customers with high strength and/or high-volume wastewater discharges will be included on an ongoing inspection schedule.
Inspection charge: $165.00 per hour (GST inclusive)
Metering and sampling charges
Customers with high strength and/or high-volume wastewater discharges may be subject to an individual monitoring program which includes metering the wastewater discharge and taking samples for laboratory analysis.
The charges for the monitoring program are as follows.
Meter reading charge: $45.03 for each meter
Sampling charges
- Grab sample: $508.97 per sample (GST inclusive)
- Composite sample: $806.30 per sample (GST inclusive)*
- Additional analysis where required: at cost
*Additional samples taken across the compositing period are charged at the Grab sample rate.
One-off discharge charges
Businesses that don't have a trade waste permit and need to discharge wastewater for a limited time are charged for one-off discharge. Apply for one-off discharge.
Charges for one-off discharges
- Quality-quantity charges to cover the cost of accepting and treating the discharge in our sewer system, an hourly rate to cover the cost of the time of our staff managing the discharge, and (where applicable) a charge to provide access to the sewer system.
- Quality-quantity charges are derived from meter readings and water quality results from sampling conducted by the customer or us. Please refer to the refer to table below for information about individual wastewater quality charging rates.
- One-off discharges do not incur an annual permit charge. All activities carried out by our staff regarding the management of one-off discharges are charged hourly.
One-off discharge: $150.13 per hour
Field inspections: $165.00 per hour (GST inclusive)
Pre-treatment product approval charges
Manufacturers, suppliers, importers, distributors or agents with a product suitable for the water industry can apply for pre-treatment product approvals.
We charge an hourly rate for evaluating pre-treatment products for acceptability for use in our areas of operations in WA.
Product evaluations: $197.04 per hour
Other costs
Our charges don't cover services from other providers, such as supplying or maintaining your plumbing and pre-treatment fixtures, disposal of any sludge or by-products captured by your wastewater pre-treatment, or handling waste streams not discharged to the sewer.
You may also be subject to licensing obligations and associated charges from the Department of Water and Environment Regulation or other regulatory bodies.
You should contact the specific waste service provider or the appropriate regulatory body for information on these services and your waste licensing obligations.
Trade waste billing
Your billing schedule will depend on the charges applicable to your business.
Trade waste permit billing
You'll receive your first trade waste bill shortly after we issue your permit. After that, we'll bill you for your permit annually in July.
Please note that your water bill doesn’t include your trade waste charges.
If applicable, quality-quantity, activity and one-off discharge charges will be billed as detailed below.
Quality-quantity billing
Trade waste quality-quantity charges are billed in arrears.
- Businesses that fall into the fixed industry quality-quantity charges are usually billed quarterly.
- Businesses, where quality-quantity charges are determined by an individual assessment, are usually billed quarterly, 4-monthly or 6-monthly in alignment with meter reading cycles.
Activity based billing
Activity-based charges for sampling, meter reading or inspections are charged with quality-quantity charges.
Inspections for businesses not subject to quality-quantity charges are billed on completion of the activity.
One-off discharge billing
One-off discharges are usually billed once the work is completed unless the discharge period is extensive, in which case we send periodic bills.
Quality-quantity charges
The table below shows the charges that apply for the volume discharged and quality (chemical concentration) of the wastewater (Excludes Fixed industry quality-quantity charges).
| Parameter | Range | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | $1.645 /kL | |
| Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) | 0–5,000 mg/L Above 5,000 mg/L |
$1.373 /kg $2.802 /kg |
| Suspended Solids | 0–2,000 mg/L Above 2,000 mg/L |
$1.872 /kg $3.766/kg |
| Oil & Grease | 0–300 mg/L 300–600 mg/L Above 600 mg/L |
$1.690 /kg $3.313 /kg $6.682 /kg |
| Acidity to pH 6 as CaCO3 | 0–100 mg/L 100–300 mg/L Above 300 mg/L |
$0.465 /kg $0.976 /kg $1.940 /kg |
| Alkalinity to pH 10 as CaCO3 | 0–100 mg/L 100–200 mg/L Above 200 mg/L |
$0.147 /kg $0.352 /kg $0.703 /kg |
Nutrients |
||
| Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen | $1.497 /kg | |
| Total Phosphorus | $0.420 /kg | |
Salts |
||
| Sulphate | 0–50 mg/L Above 50 mg/L |
No charge $0.794 /kg |
| TDS | 0–1,000 mg/L 1,000–3,000 mg/L 3,000–6,000 mg/L Above 6,000 mg/L |
No charge $0.001 /kg $0.044 /kg $0.158 /kg |
Metals |
||
| Chromium | 0–0.03 kg per day 0.03–1 kg per day Above 1 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $24.799 /kg $99.366 /kg |
| Copper | 0–0.03 kg per day 0.03–0.12 kg per day Above 0.12 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $24.799 /kg $99.366 /kg |
| Lead | 0–0.03 kg per day 0.03–0.3 kg per day Above 0.3 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $24.799 /kg $99.366 /kg |
| Nickel | 0–0.006 kg per day 0.006–0.15 kg per day Above 0.15 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $24.799 /kg $99.366 /kg |
| Zinc | 0–0.05 kg per day 0.05–0.5 kg per day Above 0.5 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $24.799 /kg $99.366 /kg |
| Arsenic | 0–0.001 kg per day 0.001–0.04 kg per day Above 0.04 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $124.176 /kg $1,241.739 /kg |
| Cadmium | 0–0.001 kg per day 0.001–0.015 kg per day Above 0.015 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $124.176 /kg $1,241.739 /kg |
| Molybdenum | 0–0.001 kg per day 0.001–0.02 kg per day Above 0.02 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $124.176 /kg $1,241.739 /kg |
| Selenium | 0–0.001 kg per day 0.001–0.02 kg per day Above 0.02 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $124.176 /kg $1,241.739 /kg |
| Silver | 0–0.002 kg per day 0.002–0.01 kg per day Above 0.01 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $124.176 /kg $1,241.739 /kg |
| Mercury | 0–0.0001 kg per day 0.0001–0.001 kg per day Above 0.001 kg per day |
$12.433 /kg $1,241.739 /kg $9,313.391 /kg |
For more about trade waste and permits, please visit trade waste.