Close eye on recycler SKM’s return

Collapsed recycler SKM is “ready to go”, its operations manager says. But while the state government won’t oppose it, they’d like to see a lot of issues resolved across the sector.

The state government is “not opposed” to collapsed recycling SKM restarting operations.

The Sunday Herald Sun revealed yesterday that SKM had cleaned up its Coolaroo and Laverton sites, with operations manager Jeff Bunting declaring it was “ready to go" once authorities gave it the green light.

Assistant Treasurer Robin Scott said that the “government doesn’t oppose operators”, and had handed more than $11 million to councils affected by the crisis.

“We are doing a lot of work to ensure that recycling is improved from the current situation,” he said.

“If SKM comes back online that’s not something the government opposes, but we’d like to see obviously some of the issues in recycling resolved and improved and that’s why we made an investment of $11 million.

“I’m not going to pre-empt further financial decisions, but there’s a lot of work going in government to deal with issues surrounding recycling.

“I’m not aware of direct financial provision of support for SKM, but there’s work going on.”

SKM Recycling is piled sky-high in Melbourne warehouses.

The state opposition called for the government to suspend the landfill levy, which it said would collect about $240 million this year.

But Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said government would only spend about $40 million on waste and recycling.

“Victorians pay these bin taxes to support a recycling system to protect the environment and reduce waste, but they aren’t getting that service now,” he said.

“It is wrong for banks to charge a fee for a service they don’t provide and it is just as wrong for Daniel Andrews to do the same.”

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It comes as City of Greater Geelong mayor Bruce Harwood is warning the landfill in Drysdale, which receives the city’s waste, is filling up twice as fast as expected due to Geelong’s booming population and increasing wastefulness.

Cr Harwood warned the city could be forced to dig a new landfill much sooner than expected.

“We now have grave fears for the life of our landfill in Drysdale, and how long that may still service the community,” Cr Harwood said.

“We were hoping for it to last the next six or seven years, but this will only place greater pressure on that and means we’ll now have to start looking at an even shorter timeframe of where our next landfill will be”