Geelong Resource Recovery Centre gets $4.2m for safety upgrades but no word on reopening

The Geelong Resource Recovery Centre remains idle following its sudden closure in March. Now City Hall is splashing the cash in an effort to open its gates again, but there is no indication when that will occur.

Geelong Resource Recovery Centre has been closed since March. Picture: Peter Ristevski.

The reopening of a Geelong waste facility appears a long way off as council sets aside millions in an effort to rectify a situation one insider describes as a “disaster”.

City Hall abruptly closed its Geelong Resource Recovery Centre (GRRC) in early March after an engineering consultant reported that buildings at the Douro St site had significant structural issues that put the safety of customers and staff at risk.

The move has forced residents wanting to offload a range of items not permitted in residential bins, such as electronic waste and paint, to travel to Drysdale or Werribee.

Prior to its closure, council had stopped accepting garden organics, soil and rubble at Douro St so it could prioritise difficult-to-recycle materials, which in turn was meant to assist its efforts to meet landfill diversion goals.

Council’s draft budget, which is out for public consultation until May 21, has allocated $1.2m next financial year and $3m in 2026-27 to “investigate, plan, design and construct in stages to reconfigure and improve safety, traffic and efficiency at GRRC”.

Uncertainty surrounds the facility’s reopening. Picture: Peter Ristevski.

Council allocated $250,000 this financial year for the same purpose, while an $8.3m plan to design and construct a third resource recovery centre within the municipality has been pushed back a year.

No timeline for the reopening of the Douro St site has been given and one senior City Hall source said the safety situation should not have come as a surprise given its long history of issues.

“It’s a disaster,” they said.

“Essentially, Victoria’s second largest city has no place in its urban area for the community to take any waste you cannot put in your kerbside bin.

“The millions in the draft budget are to rebuild the facility, but the proposed costings are just back of napkin estimates that could significantly blow out and become another financial sinkhole for the City of Greater Geelong.”

The draft budget has also set aside $12.5m for upgrades at the Staceys Road compost facility in Anakie.

That work is in response to a state government demand that all councils provide food and garden organic services by 2030.

Council’s executive director of infrastructure James Stirton said two safety improvement notices issued by WorkSafe in 2022 were unrelated to the GRRC’s current closure.

They related to risks around traffic in the garden organics and rubble collection areas.

Mr Stirton said council does not directly employ any staff at the GRRC as it is operated by a contractor.

Originally published as Geelong Resource Recovery Centre gets $4.2m for safety upgrades but no word on reopening