Return of recycling
Multiple councils send waste to processing plant
VICTORIAN councils are again sending their waste to recycling instead of heading to the tip, as the state crawls back from a crippling waste crisis.
The Brimbank, Moonee Valley, Hobsons Bay, Port Phillip, Nillumbik and Melbourne councils are back to sending footpath recycling to the state’s largest processing plant after months of diverting it to landfill.
SKM’s Laverton North site is “back and fully operational” BRITISH companies are ramping up preparations ahead of Brexit, spearheaded by the food and drink sectors stockpiling extra ingredients and bottles.
‘Get ready for Brexit’ is the UK government’s slogan ahead of the nation’s scheduled departure from the European Union on October 31.
Billboards up and down the country are carrying the message as part of a state-funded advertising campaign that also features leaflets, web information and a roadshow where businesses can seek advice.
“We are preparing for the potential impact of the UK’s departure from the European Union by building stocks of key ingredients and equipment that could be affected by disruption to the flow of goods into the UK,” bakery chain Greggs said this week, addressing customer concerns that they could struggle to get hold of its famed sausage rolls.
The government’s own forecasts show Britain potentially running out of food and vital medicine — and seeing riots on the streets in the event of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.
The problems stem from decades of interdependence that saw goods and services to while its Coolaroo site is yet to return to business, Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said yesterday.
“At Coolaroo they are making some significant progress in cleaning up those materials — they were far more contaminated,” she said. “That site has its own challenges, which the receivers are now going through and getting it back to a point where it can be fully operational.”
This site had been the source of a fire in 2017, which prompted a class action. flow freely and without customs checks.
Businesses fear that even brief border inspections would plug up trade routes and grind their operations to a halt.
“The big problem is that there is still, unbelievably, such uncertainty,” Rosalind Sharpe from the Centre for Food Policy Research at City University of London said.
“Companies really don’t know what will happen and in that situation they have to plan as best they can,” said Sharpe,
In the Supreme Court yesterday, Justice John Dixon handed down a judgment into how to divide the $1.2 million class-action settlement into the Coolaroo site fire in 2017.
The reboot of the sector has been pushed along by a $10 million state government loan to SKM’s receivers KordaMentha.
Some of the 33 councils are negotiating with the receivers to resume recycling of kerbside materials, while others have opted for alternative providers, Ms D’Ambrosio said. who has studied the impact of Brexit on Britain’s food supply.
“Steps have been taken but it’s beyond doubt that if we leave on October 31 without a deal there will be chaos at the ports, there will be shortages.”
Bank of England governor Mark Carney last month acknowledged “improvements in preparedness” but still forecast a shortfall in British GDP of 5.5 per cent in the event of no-deal.
The government’s ‘Get ready for Brexit’ campaign
“We hope as the days go by, we will have more reports of councils joining in with a return of their kerbside collection going to recycling facilities,” she said.
While Ms D’Ambrosio would not reveal if there were buyers for the company, she confirmed there had been a “healthy response from the market” for SKM’s facilities.
SKM had previously been ordered to stop accepting waste by the state’s environmental watchdog over safety concerns about waste stockpiles and fire includes advice on the exporting and importing of goods and services, as well as on the movement of goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fresh Brexit deal proposals this week are aimed at preserving a free-flowing border between British-run Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in the European Union.
However, the European Parliament’s Brexit steering group have said that the prorisk. The company collapsed in August, owing more than $100 million to creditors.
KordaMentha switched SKM’s Laverton North site back online in September after clearing 10,000 tonnes of nonrecyclable waste from the site.
Ms D’Ambrosio also spruiked the government’s $1.6 million towards research projects into an end market for the goods, while institutions such as University of Melbourne and Deakin University stump up a further $3.4 million in projects. posals do not “represent the basis for an agreement”.
At UK-based Daniel Lambert Wines, bottles from around the globe are being stockpiled at a greater rate.
“Normally we would have a four-month (inventory). Now it is at about six months,” owner Daniel Lambert said.
“We’re fully prepared but we are worried about a rise in costs,” he said, adding that his import charges had already risen owing to a Brexit-fuelled slump in the pound.