Early access open
Waste carries a duty of care that follows the material rather than the invoice. If your waste is dumped illegally, the trail leads back to you regardless of who you paid to take it away.
This page covers what gets subcontracted in this sector, the credentials worth confirming, and how a job runs on Workforce Marketplace. Early access is open.
What gets subcontracted
The work most often subcontracted covers:
- Waste collection, transport and disposal across commercial sites
- Contaminated soil removal and remediation
- Asbestos removal, assessment and clearance
- Hazardous and liquid waste handling
- Environmental monitoring, sampling and reporting
- Contamination assessment and site auditing
- Recycling, resource recovery and waste stream auditing
Credentials that matter here
The licences here are issued by environment protection authorities and WHS regulators, and they are specific to the waste type:
- Environment protection licence for the transport and receipt of regulated waste, issued by the state EPA and specific to the waste classification
- Asbestos Removal Licence Class A for friable material or Class B for non-friable, through the state WHS regulator
- Asbestos Assessor Licence for clearance inspections and air monitoring, which must be independent of the removalist
- Dangerous Goods Driver Certificate (ADG) and vehicle licensing for hazardous loads
- Pest Management Technician Licence where treatment is bundled with the service
- Confined Space Entry, Gas Test Atmospheres and Breathing Apparatus competencies for tank and pit work
- ISO Lead Auditor, Environmental (ISO 14001) for management system audit work
Clearance must be independent. The assessor who issues an asbestos clearance certificate cannot be the removalist who did the work, and engaging one business to do both creates a certificate that is worth very little if it is ever tested.
What to confirm before work starts
An active ABN. Where a supplier does not quote one, you are generally required to withhold 47 per cent of the payment and remit it to the ATO. Their GST registration also tells you whether the price should carry it.
That the credential is held by the entity you are contracting with. A person can hold a qualification while the business you are paying holds nothing. Check the name on the document against the name on the invoice.
Insurance appropriate to the scope. Public liability is the common one. Depending on the work you may also need professional indemnity, and workers compensation if they carry their own staff.
That the engagement is genuinely a contract for services. Since the Fair Work amendments the test looks at the real substance of the relationship rather than the label on the paperwork, and getting it wrong creates back-pay, superannuation and payroll tax exposure. Contractor vs employee in Australia sets out how it now works.
Writing a scope that gets comparable quotes
Waste scopes need the tracking documented. State the waste classification and who is responsible for classifying it, which licensed facility it is going to and confirmation it is licensed to receive that class, what documentation comes back and in what timeframe, who holds the duty of care records, what happens if the material turns out to be different to what was declared, and who is liable for the cost of reclassification.
How it works on Workforce Marketplace
Post the scope with the payment structure it actually uses, whether that is fixed price, hourly, daily, quoted or split into milestones for staged work. Subcontractors apply, and you compare them side by side rather than chasing callbacks.
Every account is ABN-verified at sign-up. Beyond that, subcontractors can submit licences, certifications and insurance for verification, which we review rather than grant automatically. Their profile shows the status against each credential without showing the document, the licence number or the ABN. Verification is opt-in, so a profile may hold credentials that have not been submitted, and it reflects the document as at the date it was reviewed rather than standing indefinitely.
Applying for work costs nothing and there are no leads to buy. Payment runs through Stripe, and Workforce Marketplace never stores your card or bank details.
Related guides
- Find subcontractors in Australia
- How to find subcontractors for your business
- What insurance does a subcontractor need in Australia?
- How to invoice as a subcontractor in Australia (with GST)
Post work, or apply for it, from the same account. Early access is open.