Council urges households to keep recycling as waste giant flounders

Tonnes of recyclable material will be sent to landfill after SKM Recycling told councils it would no longer accept their kerbside collection. And Darebin will call for permission to break its multimillion-dollar contract to address the disaster.

SKM Recycling is in court over debts owed to other companies.

Tonnes of recycling will be dumped as landfill after SKM Recycling notified councils it will stop accepting the materials.

Darebin Mayor Susan Rennie said the council was “bitterly disappointed” SKM closed its doors to recyclables.

“The residents of Darebin are extremely environmentally conscious and the news their recycling is going to landfill is just as painful to us as it is to them. Council is doing everything it can to find alternative options,” she said.

Leader understands the council will formally request for an exemption from the State Government so it can break its contract with SKM Recycling and deal with other recycling providers.

The council’s $950,000 a year deal with the contractor expires on September 7, 2020.

The founder of the embattled contractor threatened to shut down the company, which services more than 30 councils, and has faced a number of warnings and closures from the Environmental Protection Agency since a huge fire in July 2017.

The SKM founder has threatened to shut down the business after a “witch hunt”.

Ten companies are pursuing SKM Recycling for millions of dollars in debts and want the business declared insolvent if it doesn’t pay up.

SKM founder Giuseppe “Joe” Italiano told the Sunday Herald Sun he was the victim of a government witch hunt.

Earlier this week the council issued an update via its social media pages, urging residents to keep recycling as usual.

The council was forced to send tonnes of recycling to landfill in February after the EPA shut down SKM for a breach of its waste management policy.

Darebin Mayor Susan Rennie said the council had been working with members of parliament and the Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group on solutions to the country’s recycling crisis.

“Council continues to monitor the situation closely and continues to ask the State and Federal governments to join with local councils to find long-term sustainable solutions to the crisis in the recycling industry,” she said.

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The council has called on the State Government to establish a container deposit scheme and an alternative storage and processing site.

Cr Rennie said the new contract would include the potential for multiple suppliers and a stronger emphasis on reporting and performance requirements.

@richardapearce