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Victoria recycling grinds to halt as firm closes door on new rubbish

Recycling will be tipped into landfill after a major recycling firm announced it won’t accept any more rubbish.

SKM Recycling won['t accept more rubbish. Picture: Glenn Ferguson.
SKM Recycling won['t accept more rubbish. Picture: Glenn Ferguson.

Recycling collected from several Melbourne suburbs will be tipped into landfill after a major recycling firm announced it won’t accept any more rubbish. About 600 jobs are on the line if SKM Recycling goes under, while affected councils face spending a combined $700,000 a week to put glass and plastics into landfill instead of recycling.

Founder Giuseppe Italiano had already flagged his business would shut this week, and on Friday SKM stopped taking recycling from about 30 councils. The firm has had a series of fires at its Melbourne sites, leading to a crackdown by the Environmental Protection Authority for licence breaches, including stockpiling material.

“They can’t in fact take any more without breaching their permits with EPA. The system is fully loaded,” SKM’s representative Rob Spence told ABC radio today.

“If this stuff goes to landfill, I have done a quick number and it says the cost to councils will be in aggregate about $700,000 a week.”

The EPA said there are no restrictions on SKM taking waste at its Coolaroo, Laverton North, Geelong and Hallam sites, but its subsidiary Glass Recovery Services isn’t allowed to take waste until its stockpiles comply with the law. That doesn’t help SKM because the glass waste arrives mingled with other types of waste.

Mr Spence said the EPA put a freeze on processing glass at the Coolaroo site and restricted glass going into the facility in May, causing a backlog and increasing stockpiles.

The EPA pointed out there were two fires earlier this year at the Glass Recovery Services stockpile, leading to the ban.

Mr Spence said if SKM closed then 600 workers will lose their jobs, after the firm spent $50 million in the past two years on new equipment. But SKM has also faced legal action in two states from creditors asking the Supreme Court to wind up the business.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio told AAP the government will work with affected councils to “ensure the least possible disruption to residents during this period”.

“We fully support the EPA in shutting down yet another SKM facility that was non-compliant, in order to protect the community from dangerous stockpiles,” she said in a statement.

But Mr Spence said the government hasn’t been talking to SKM “There has been no engagement with the state with SKM at a ministerial level, probably for 18 months … maybe one meeting with the department,” he said.

AAP

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/victoria-recycling-grinds-to-halt-as-firm-closes-door-on-new-rubbish/news-story/6af8033cd332e763955daf459d4bf86b