The trailer is loaded, the sheets are wrapped, and the bloke at the gate says no. That happens more often than it should around here, because asbestos disposal in the Barwon region comes down to a single licensed site, and for most people it is not the closest tip.
That is worth sorting out before you pull one sheet off the frame. Where the waste is allowed to go changes how it has to be wrapped, what the job ends up costing, and in a fair few cases whether it’s sensible to touch it yourself at all.
Only one site in the Barwon region is licensed for asbestos disposal
EPA Victoria keeps a statutory register called Landfills licensed for asbestos waste. The version updated 22 June 2026 lists 26 sites across the whole state. Exactly one of them is in this region: Drysdale Landfill, run by the City of Greater Geelong under licence OL000072476.
That’s the short version, and most of what follows comes out of it. No Surf Coast, Colac Otway, Golden Plains or Queenscliffe site is on the register. Neither is any commercial receiver near Geelong. The commercial entries sit at Dandenong South, Bulla, Wollert, Stawell and Patho, all a long way off and most of them trade only.
Drysdale takes small domestic quantities, capped at a 6x4 trailer load. Golden Plains Shire tells residents to call prior to attending, and EPA’s advice is to contact the landfill before you transport and deliver, because a licensed site can still knock a load back and may want you booked in. The number is (03) 5251 2935.
We haven’t printed a street address here on purpose. EPA’s register and two councils’ own pages give different roads, and until someone confirms which gate you actually drive into, the phone number is the part you can rely on. Ring it, confirm the entrance, and ask what time they can take the load.
If you’re not certain the material is asbestos in the first place, get it tested before you touch it. It’s the cheapest honest step in the whole business. Call now on 0480 XXX XXX, or send a photo through the contact form and we will point you to asbestos testing in Geelong or put you in touch with a licensed removalist for a quote.
Why your local transfer station will turn you away
Surf Coast Shire is blunt about it. Its waste page states that asbestos roofing sheets and building products are not accepted at any transfer station in the shire. That rules out Anglesea, Winchelsea, Lorne and the Torquay residential drop-off, and the shire’s own site pages send residents to Drysdale instead.
Golden Plains Shire has one transfer station, at Rokewood, and its fee table carries no asbestos line at all. The Borough of Queenscliffe runs no tip or transfer station. Colac Otway Shire publishes no asbestos disposal option anywhere: its transfer stations list general rubbish, hard rubbish, recycling and organics, and the shire’s asbestos advice is to speak to an Environmental Health Officer.
Be careful with the Geelong sites too. The only Geelong-area facility on EPA’s register is Drysdale, so do not assume another resource recovery centre will take a load just because it takes everything else.
There is one fallback outside the region, which matters if you’re out towards Bannockburn or Meredith. Ballarat Regional Landfill at Smythesdale holds EPA licence OL000012008 and takes asbestos by appointment only, Thursdays between 10am and 12pm, on (03) 5342 8540.
Say six wall panels come off a garden shed at a Torquay place and end up stacked beside the carport. The owner assumes the local drop-off will take them. It won’t, and nor will Anglesea or Lorne. The nearest legal destination is over on the Bellarine, which is a decent drive with a loaded trailer, while shed removal by a licensed crew is a Melbourne-metro benchmark of $1,300 to $3,000 with the waste going out on their truck.
How asbestos waste has to be wrapped, labelled and carried
Asbestos waste is pre-classified as reportable priority waste under Schedule 5 of the Environment Protection Regulations 2021. The packaging rules that come with that aren’t a suggestion. A load that turns up loose on a ute tray can be sent home.
Asbestos Victoria’s packaging guidance sets out what is expected. Sheeting goes in polythene sheeting approximately 200 microns (0.2 mm) thick, sealed with adhesive tape. Dust and friable material go into double polythene bags of the same thickness, filled only half full, with a loaded weight no more than 30 kg.
Every package carries the asbestos warning mark, roughly 75 mm by 90 mm, reading CAUTION ASBESTOS DO NOT OPEN OR DAMAGE BAG DO NOT INHALE DUST. All containers must display that mark before transport starts, not after you arrive. If you are carrying cement sheeting in a vehicle, two layers of polythene sheeting go down in the cargo compartment first, and packages need to be small enough to handle easily.
The friable side of that is not a DIY question at all. Pipe lagging, crumbling or fire-damaged sheeting and asbestos-contaminated dust always need a Class A licensed removalist, with no exemption at any quantity. If you are unsure which you are looking at, the difference between friable and non-friable asbestos decides most of what happens next.
A householder taking a small domestic load to an authorised landfill does not need an EPA transport permission. Commercial and trade loads are different, and they move under EPA permissions with the movement recorded in Waste Tracker. The destination is the same either way. EPA’s register is the test, and asbestos can never go in a general waste skip or out with a council hard waste collection.
What asbestos disposal costs, and what nobody publishes
This is the point where most cost guides quietly invent a number. We won’t. Drysdale Landfill doesn’t publish an asbestos gate fee on any page we could load, and the City of Greater Geelong’s asbestos page sits behind a bot check, so its fee, booking notice and asbestos hours are all unconfirmed. Surf Coast Shire’s page says only that fees apply. Ask on the phone when you ring to book.
What can be published is what other Victorian councils charge, purely as a sense of scale.
| Disposal route | What it involves | Indicative cost, AUD |
|---|---|---|
| Drysdale Landfill, small domestic load | Small domestic quantities only, 6x4 trailer maximum, ring (03) 5251 2935 first | Fees apply, no figure published. Ask when you book |
| Gate fees at other Victorian councils | Wellington, South Gippsland and East Gippsland shires publish theirs | $100 to $376 per tonne, and none of those councils is Geelong |
| Asbestos bin hire | Lined bin, waste bagged before it goes in, hire fee plus a separate tipping fee by weight | No Victorian operator publishes a price. One Melbourne operator lists $75 inc GST to line the bin |
| Disposal inside a removalist’s quote | The licensed removalist takes the waste away as part of the job | Minimum job charge of $800 to $1,500 covers small jobs, Melbourne-metro benchmark |
| Ballarat Regional Landfill, Smythesdale | Nearest verified fallback outside the region, appointment only, Thursdays 10am to 12pm | Not listed in the city’s fee schedule |
Read those with two caveats attached. Every Victorian figure here is a Melbourne-metro or non-Geelong benchmark, because nobody in Geelong or the Barwon region publishes rates at all. Prices are also indicative and GST treatment varies between providers, so ask each removalist whether their quote includes GST.
The minimum job charge is the number that catches people out. Removal work in Victoria carries a minimum call-out of roughly $800 to $1,500, which is why a four sheet repair never works out at four times the per sheet rate. More on that in our guide to asbestos removal cost in Geelong and on the cost page.
If the sums are starting to look like a job rather than a trailer trip, get a quote from a licensed removalist before you commit either way. Call now on 0480 XXX XXX and we will put you in touch with one.
Asbestos bins are not skip bins
An asbestos bin is a different product from the skip you hire for a renovation clean-up, and it’s priced differently. No Victorian operator we could find publishes a rate, so treat any bin price you’re quoted as quote-on-request until you have it in writing.
The way they charge is consistent even where the numbers aren’t. You pay a hire fee, then a separate tipping fee by weight. The bin gets lined with plastic and taped, and the asbestos has to be bagged before it goes in, not tipped in loose. Melbourne operators publish weight caps per bin size, so an overloaded bin turns into its own problem on collection day.
A general waste skip cannot take asbestos at any price, and neither can hard waste. If a bin company tells you otherwise, that is the moment to ring someone else.
When disposal stops being a job you do yourself
This is the bit most asbestos content gets wrong, so it’s worth stating carefully. Victoria’s OHS Regulations r250 allow non-friable asbestos to be removed without a licence only where the area does not exceed 10 square metres in total and the person does not perform more than one hour of asbestos removal work in any seven day period. Both caps have to hold, and the hour is cumulative across jobs, not per job.
Those regulations bind employers and self-employed people at workplaces. The WorkSafe compliance code says plainly at paragraph 34 that where removal is performed by a person in their own home, the OHS Regulations do not apply, because a home is not a workplace. It also recommends the code be followed anyway.
So no, it is not illegal for you to remove more than 10 square metres at your own house. But the caps become law the moment a tradesperson, a tenant, a rental property, a business premises or a paid helper is involved, and WorkSafe’s position is that removal is best done by licensed removalists. Our guide on removing asbestos yourself in Victoria walks through where that line actually falls.
The practical version is shorter. A full fence line, a whole garage or a house roof is far past 10 square metres and far past an hour, so the sheer volume makes it a licensed job.
Take a 1960s fibro fence line along a back boundary in Norlane. The whole run is a Melbourne-metro benchmark of $1,000 to $3,500 removed, and per sheet rates of $20 to $50 only mean anything read alongside that $800 to $1,500 minimum charge. Disposal usually sits inside the removalist’s price, which is one less trailer trip to the Bellarine. Our page on asbestos fence removal in Geelong covers the neighbour and cost-sharing side of it.
Or take a shed at the back of a property a new owner has just bought near Colac. Colac Otway Shire publishes no asbestos option, so the waste has to travel to the one register site on the Bellarine, and that drive is part of the real cost of doing it yourself. Shed removal runs $1,300 to $3,000 on the Victorian benchmark, waste included. There’s more local detail on our Colac page.
There is one bit of good news in the paperwork. Where a homeowner has engaged a licensed removalist at a domestic property, the duty to obtain the clearance certificate sits with the licence holder, not with you. And a clearance certificate is not required at all where the work was only non-friable material not exceeding 10 square metres in total.
Want a price on the material rather than a plan for the tip? Call now on 0480 XXX XXX, or send us a photo and we will put you in touch with a licensed removalist. Their WorkSafe Victoria licence number appears on every quote, and you contract with them directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I take asbestos to the tip myself in Geelong?
A small domestic load can go to Drysdale Landfill, which is the only site in the Barwon region on EPA Victoria’s register of landfills licensed for asbestos waste. It is capped at a 6x4 trailer, and you need to ring (03) 5251 2935 first, because a licensed site can still decline a load and may want you booked in. The waste has to be wrapped in 200 micron polythene, sealed and labelled before it moves.
Can asbestos go in a normal skip bin or council hard waste?
No. Asbestos is reportable priority waste in Victoria and can only go to a landfill authorised to receive it, so it cannot go in a general waste skip or out with a hard waste collection. Asbestos bins are a separate product, lined and taped, with the waste bagged before it goes in. The price is a hire fee plus a separate tipping fee charged by weight.
How much does Drysdale Landfill charge for asbestos disposal?
The fee is not published on any page we could verify, and the council’s own asbestos page could not be loaded, so we will not guess at a figure. Surf Coast Shire’s page states only that fees apply. Ring (03) 5251 2935 and ask when you book the load in. For scale, other Victorian councils publish asbestos gate fees between $100 and $376 per tonne, though none of those councils is Geelong.
What do I do if I live in Torquay, Lorne or Colac?
Surf Coast Shire does not accept asbestos at any of its transfer stations, and Colac Otway Shire publishes no asbestos option at all. That leaves Drysdale Landfill on the Bellarine as the one legal destination in the region, or having a licensed removalist take the waste as part of the job. If you are out towards Golden Plains, Ballarat Regional Landfill at Smythesdale takes it by appointment on Thursdays between 10am and 12pm.