A statement from Brimbank City Council Mayor, Cr Lucinda Congreve.
The EPA has ordered SKM Recycling (SKM) to stop receiving recyclable materials at their glass recycling facility. This has meant SKM has temporarily closed its four recycling processing facilities in Laverton, Coolaroo, Geelong and Hallam.
The temporary closure of SKM means that from today (26 July 2019), until further notice, any recyclable material collected in Brimbank will go to landfill.
Brimbank is one of 32 councils contracted to SKM for the processing of its recyclable material.
We have been working with the Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group (MWRRG) who manages our contract with SKM, on immediate options, as well as long term solutions to manage recycling services for our households.
At this time there is no other viable option for the short term storage and management of our city's recyclable material, and there is very limited capacity in metro Melbourne and further afield for the processing of recycling, however we are working hard to find any available options for our recyclables.
We are hugely frustrated and disappointed that our community has been placed in this situation once again.
We share our community's disappointment and we are working hard to find a solution.
In the meantime Council's kerbside recycling collection service will continue – with recyclable material being directed to landfill, but we encourage any households with a recycling bin that is not full to consider storing their recycling where possible.
We will keep our community updated with the next steps as soon as we are able.
