*See the Trade Waste Owner’s Consent section of our Trade Waste customer charter for more information.

What are City West Water’s trade waste charges?

One-off application fee:

When a trade waste agreement is prepared (or renewed) the customer is charged a one-off fee to cover the cost of processing the Trade Waste Application.

More complex applications take more time to process and attract a higher charge.

A customer’s complexity is determined by their risk rank.

Agreement Charge:

The Trade Waste Agreement Charge is an annual charge (paid in either quarterly or monthly instalments) which cover the cost of administering and monitoring Trade Waste Agreements and Consents.

Higher risk customers pay a higher charge than low risk customers as they require an increased level of monitoring and administration.

Volumetric and quality charges:

Volumetric and quality charges cover both the transport of trade waste through the sewerage system and treatment of trade waste at the waste water treatment plant.

Customers who discharge less than 4 kilolitres per day of trade waste or operate a restaurant or other food business pay a fixed price per kilolitre.

These charges appear on the relevant water and sewage account as non-residential sewage.

Customers who discharge 4 or more kilolitres per day of trade waste and do not operate a restaurant or other food business receive charges that are based on the:

• volume of trade waste discharged to sewer
• contaminant loads that are contained within the trade waste discharge

How is the volume of trade waste determined?

For customers who discharge 10 or more kilolitres per day, trade waste volumes can be determined using one of the following methods:

• Applying a factor to the site’s water meter
• Measuring the volume of trade waste with a flow measurement device (a mandatory requirement for customers who discharge more than 25 kilolitres/day)
• Using an estimated amount that is agreed between CWW and the customer

Examples of trade waste charges being applied

Example 1: A take-away food shop will discharge 7kL of trade waste on average per day.

The trade waste from the site is the dirty water that is generated from the food preparation and wash-up areas.

Although this site discharges more than 10kL of trade waste per day, it is a restaurant or other food business, which means this customer will not pay any trade waste volumetric or load based contaminant charges on their trade waste account.

Instead the applicable non-residential water and sewage account will cover the costs associated with the transport and treatment the site’s trade waste.

Example 2: A new mechanics workshop will discharge 3kL of trade waste on average per day.

The trade waste is the dirty water that results from the cleaning of parts and washing of vehicles on site.

Because the site discharges less than 10kL of trade waste per day this customer will not pay any trade waste volumetric or load based contaminant charges on their trade waste account.

Instead the applicable non-residential water and sewage account will cover the costs associated with the transport and treatment the site’s trade waste.

Example 3: An Industrial Laundry will discharge 18kL of trade waste per day.

The trade waste is the dirty water that gets discharged from the washing machines.

Because the site is expected to discharge more than 10kL of trade waste per day this customer will be required to pay trade waste volumetric and load based contaminant charges on their trade waste account.

The quality of the site’s trade waste may either be determined by:

• Analysing samples of trade waste taken from the site; or
• Apply qualities determined from samples taken from similar businesses.

Typical laundry qualities are:

This means every kilolitre of trade waste discharge will be charged at the following rate:

Because the customer discharges is less than 25 kilolitres per day the volume of trade waste to be billed will be determined by a factor applied to the site’s water meter.

The factor will be derived by performing a water balance over the site using information provided by the customer.

Example 4: A Chemical Plant will discharge 400kL of trade waste per day.

The trade waste is the waste water that gets discharged from the site’s boilers, cooling towers and from the cleaning of the site’s vessels and reactors.

Because the site is expected to discharge more than 10kL per day of trade waste this customer will be required to pay trade waste volumetric and load based contaminant charges on their trade waste account.

The quality of the site’s trade waste will be assessed by sampling programs. Alternatively City West Water will apply qualities determined from samples taken from similar businesses.

Sample data taken by both CWW and the customer determines the trade waste qualities to be:

This means every kilolitre of trade waste discharge will be charged at the following rate:

*For more information on how your risk rank is determined see the Customer risk classification section of our Trade Waste customer charter and the Trade Waste section of our Pricing handbook both available on our website.