Phoenix Environmental Group banned from accepting waste
Another Melbourne company has been banned from accepting waste as the nation’s recycling crisis worsens.
Another Melbourne recycling company has been banned from accepting rubbish as the nation’s recycling crisis escalates.
Phoenix Environmental Group has been told to stop accepting waste at its Coolaroo facility - the third time Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority has slapped a ban on the company.
The news comes after SKM Recycling, one of the state’s largest recylcing groups, was handed over to liquidators in the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday, leaving at least 30 councils’ kerbside recycling programs in limbo.
Last week Victorian Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government knew there were too few operators in the market but would not prop up SKM.
“We’re continuing to work on that front and certainly expressions of interest will be out and available in the coming months with respect to getting a new entrant into the market,” she said.
Infrastructure Victoria was tasked in May with advising government on what could be done to improve the state’s recycling and resource recovery services. The agency is due to provide its interim report into the sector in October, and a final report in April.
The EPA’s Danny Childs said Phoenix processes construction and demolition waste, including timber, plasterboard, foam, insulation, cardboard, plastic and metals. “The company has failed for a third time to keep its stockpiles in check,” Mr Childs said on Monday.
“If it fails to comply with the EPA notice, it faces a fine of up to $49,566 plus a further fine of $8,261 for each day the offence continues.”
SKM also faces insolvency in Queensland and the company has faced pressure to remove more than 380 shipping containers of recyclable material from a suburban Adelaide site.
The company last month asked to be allowed to continue operating in Victoria as it worked on a $13.5 million deal with an investor so creditors could be paid. But the company’s barrister Reegan Morison said on Friday no deal been reached and the company was not in a position to oppose the wind-up application. Ms D’Ambrosio labelled SKM a “rogue cowboy operator” following a series of fires and stockpiling problems at its plants. Last week, she announced that a deal had been struck with other recycling processors to handle 40 per cent of the SKM workload.
Ms D’Ambrosio declined to say which operators had stepped in or what the cost would be to taxpayers. Victorians affected by recent factory fires - including at Bradbury Industrial Services’ Campbellfield’s facility earlier this year - are expected to speak at a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday.
More broadly, Australia’s recycling sector has been hit by China’s refusal to accept material and Malaysia’s turn-back of waste, claiming it hasn’t been properly sorted.
Additional reporting: AAP
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