SKM Services and director Robert Italiano sentenced after 2017 Coolaroo factory fire

A waste company and its director have learned their fate seven years after a blaze at a Coolaroo factory forced mass evacuations due to extremely dangerous pollution levels.

It took fire crews two days to bring the blaze under control and 10 days to extinguish it completely Picture: Nicole Garmston

A recycling firm has been slapped with a $1.1m fine after it breached pollution laws, with levels reaching up to 16 times higher than what was considered safe during a 2017 factory fire in Melbourne’s north.

SKM Services — a recycling company that went into liquidation in 2019 — was sentenced at the County Court on Wednesday after a jury found the company guilty of pollution offences after a fire erupted at its Coolaroo factory on July 13, 2017, forcing residents in several nearby suburbs to evacuate their homes.

The pollution levels during the blaze in some nearby areas reached 4000 per cubic micrograms, with the court hearing levels of 250 were considered “extremely hazardous”.

Thirty five fire trucks and 160 firefighters attended the blaze which took two days to be brought under control and more than a week to completely extinguish.

A statewide emergency response was also triggered at the time, with a relief centre set up at Broadmeadows.

The blaze also completely destroyed the factory.

Pollution levels throughout Melbourne’s northern suburbs were so bad that residents were forced to evacuate Picture: Nicole Garmston

Court documents revealed that a previous blaze at the site in February 2017 had significantly damaged one of the factory buildings and reduced the amount of recycled materials able to be processed at the site.

But despite this the company added another 1.7m kg of recycled materials, with about 25,000sq m of paper, plastics, scrap metals and glass piling up outside the factory.

Prosecutors submitted that this extra pile up of additional materials was an “aggravating factor”.

Judge John Kelly agreed that the “fire was unmanageable because of the way the waste was stored” outside.

Three other fires were recorded at the Coolaroo site between the February and July blazes which prosecutors said had “made plain” to SKM the hazards of stockpiling large volumes of materials outdoors.

But defence lawyers submitted that those fires had been caused by “external factors” after E-Coli — which had leaked from a nearby manufacturing site — had mixed with the pile.

Court documents revealed the major fire on July 13 was the same blaze that had erupted four days earlier.

SKM was convicted and fined more than $1.1m.

The company’s sole director at the time of the fire Robert Italiano, 51, was also sentenced on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to a single charge of polluting the atmosphere.

Former director of SKM Robert Italiano was convicted and fined $140,000 at the County Court on Wednesday. Picture: Athos Sirianos

The court heard he has been unemployed for the last five years, with his lawyers submitting he had “excellent” prospects of rehabilitation.

Though His Honour said Italiano had provided “scant evidence of remorse” and previously “sought to malign the efforts of MFB (Metropolitan Fire Brigade)” for its handling of the fire.

He was convicted and slapped with a $140,000 fine.