GEELONG BRACES FOR MORE RECYCLING CHAOS:
Geelong braces for more waste woes as ban hits facility
GEELONG’S council is bracing for the city’s recycling to again slip into chaos after being forced to dump 1600 tonnes of kerbside recycling into landfill earlier this year.
The City yesterday confirmed it was “taking action” to deal the expected impacts of SKM Recycling’s Laverton North site this week being banned from accepting any more waste.
It is the second time this year the site has been banned from receiving material. The February ban resulted in SKM South Geelong reaching capacity, forcing all five of the region’s councils to divert kerbside recycling to landfill for about a month.
By the time the South Geelong site reopened about 1600 tonnes of Geelong’s recycling was redirected to landfill at a cost of about $261,000.
City of Greater Geelong director of city services Guy Wilson-Browne yesterday revealed the city was bracing for the expected impacts of the latest closure.
“The City received notification yesterday that EPA Victoria has issued SKM Laverton with a notice to stop receiving recyclables until they have reached compliance once again,” he said.
“We are now taking action to manage the predicted downstream impacts on our kerbside collection service in the short term. We urge residents to continue sorting and reducing their waste responsibly. We are in contact with SKM and impressing on them the importance of undertaking the required works and the potential impact on our ratepayers.”
Council yesterday said that details of their plans to respond to the issue were unconfirmed.
The City of Greater Geelong is investigating options for long-term changes to the region’s waste collection serviced, Mr Wilson-Browne said.
The latest waste crisis concerns come after the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) on Wednesday issued SKM Recycling a notice to stop accepting recyclable waste at its Laverton north site.
The EPA took the action after finding the recycler had not followed conditions of a June 19 notice to bring its outdoor waste stockpiles into compliance after finding “large stockpiles of combustible recyclable waste materials from kerbside collections stored without appropriate separation distances between stockpiles, buildings or the premises boundary”.
SKM Recycling is contracted to process the 28,000 tonnes of recyclable material produced in the City of Greater Geelong every year, the council confirmed.
The City also claimed it would chase SKM Recycling to recoup the $261,000 costs of sending waste to landfill earlier this year, which council said it expected to finalise “shortly”.