Late Thursday SKM Recycling advised all Victorian council customers, including Casey, that the Environment Protection Authority served a notice on the company’s’ Glass Recovery Services business in Coolaroo.
As a result of this notice, SKM immediately ceased accepting recyclable material at all of its Victorian facilities. SKM took this action to prevent their sites from breaching fire prevention requirements and have advised that they are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
Sending recyclable material to landfill always remains a last resort, however there is limited spare capacity in the Victorian recycling industry. For the majority of councils who utilise SKM including Casey, the only immediate option available is to send recyclable materials to landfill until the matter is resolved or a viable alternative becomes available.
We’re continuing to work with the Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group and other affected councils to develop short term and longer term solutions to manage our recycling.
We are advised by SKM that this disruption is temporary. The collection of household recycling bins will continue as normal during this time.
Residents can assist by reducing their waste and continuing to place the correct items in each bin. Residents can also assist by squashing, squeezing and flattening their recycling so more fits into the bin, and only put the recycling bin out for collection once it is full. If the matter is resolved quickly this will mean their recyclables may still be recovered at the next collection.
