Hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of recycling waste stockpiled in Melbourne’s north have been dumped in landfill.
The Laverton and Coolaroo plants of recycling company SKM were shut down by the Environment Protection Authority in February this year for non-compliance.
The company is also being prosecuted by the EPA for a massive fire that started in piles of rubbish at its Coolaroo plant in 2017.
Both of SKM’s centres reopened last month after the EPA granted permission for them to start accepting recycled waste again.
Waste industry and trucking company sources said waste had gone to the Melbourne Regional Landfill in Ravenhall during the shutdown.
Material that hadn’t been dumped at that tip had been moved by SKM into other storage locations, they said.
EPA chief executive Cathy Wilkinson confirmed some of the material stockpiled by SKM had gone to the tip.
“As part of the notices served on SKM’s Coolaroo and Laverton North site, it was an EPA requirement that a detailed record be kept demonstrating how they complied with the notice requirements,” she said.
“Waste from [the] Coolaroo and Laverton sites went to a number of different markets, as well as a volume disposed of to landfill.”
Dr Wilkinson would not say what quantity was dumped in landfill, citing confidentiality.
SKM’s problems finding markets for recycled material it collects on behalf of 32 Victorian councils began last year when China drastically reduced the amount of waste it was prepared to take from other countries.
Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio was asked how much recyclable material SKM had sent to landfill and what would prevent it dumping recyclables again.
She did not respond to those questions.
She said the state government had invested $37 million in a strategic plan for the recycling industry.
Ms D’Ambrosio said one of the key aims of the plan was to develop a “circular economy policy” by next year that would “identify longer term solutions” for the sector.
– The Age
