Fees that could have cost waste exporters hundreds of thousands of dollars to send paper and cardboard offshore for recycling will be scrapped in a joint manoeuvre between the Greens and the Coalition.

The parties plan to strike down a fee that costs exporters about $13,500 every time they vary a contract, which industry sources say can be as often as four times a day as destinations, recyclable volumes and carrying ships change.

It would strike another blow by the Senate against Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who has so far been unable to win support for her proposed environmental laws.

The disallowance motion is scheduled to be debated this evening.

Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson said the move by the Greens and Coalition followed unsuccessful attempts by industry to negotiate with the government.

"These regulations have been unanimously rejected by the resource recovery and recycling sector, and supported by no one except Labor. Recyclers have attempted countless times to engage with the government to attempt to resolve issues, without success," the senator said.

"The disallowance of these regulations is a problem of the government's own making. The Greens have asked the government for months to meet with the resource recovery sector to resolve issues related to export licence variations contained in these regulations. This has not occurred."

An inquiry into the waste sector has heard from industry that the variation fees, dubbed a "recycling tax", would threaten to send more recyclable products to landfill because it would be cheaper than sending offshore to be processed, and state regulations prevent it from being put into storage.

Waste Management and Resource Recovery group boss Gayle Sloan told that inquiry the fees were unfair because they only applied to products being exported to be recycled, and did not apply to virgin materials, putting the sector at a disadvantage.

The sector has been critical of a lack of communication from the environment department over how the fees will and will not apply to them.

The industry is broadly supportive of fees companies must pay to register to export, which were introduced when regulations began in October.

But they say prices to vary contracts are not only prohibitively high, but the process can take up to six months — when they are often trading at short notice.

In a letter to the environment minister seen by the ABC, the waste inquiry's chair, Peter Whish-Wilson, noted the export rules were before the Senate and that he and Nationals senator Ross Cadell had moved to disallow the rules.

The Greens senator said the industry across the spectrum had raised concerns about the potential unintended consequences of the waste export rules, that could render some businesses unviable and impact recycling efforts.

He urged the minister to meet with waste and recycling groups, saying "a lack of transparency regarding the departmental, or other, costs being covered by these variation fees is also undermining trust in the government's stated goals of working collaboratively to drive down waste and increase domestic recycling".

A waste export "ban" was introduced by the Morrison government with the agreement of the states and territories after China stopped accepting foreign waste and recyclables under its "National Sword" policy.

The export regulations restrict what can be sent offshore to be recycled, and require pre-approvals or exemptions to do so — but a lack of domestic infrastructure and local demand for recycled goods has required Australia to continue to process some recycled goods overseas.

In May, the government agreed to jettison its planned export levy on the industry — but the variation fees were retained.