Victorian recycling to be sent to landfill as growing waste management crisis worsens

Local councils across Melbourne face the growing prospect of dumping tonnes of household recyclable material in landfill after the EPA banned one of the state’s largest recycling companies from accepting waste at two of its facilities.

On Friday the environment watchdog banned SKM Recycling from accepting recyclable material at its Coolaroo and Laverton sites.

Peter Anderson, CEO of Victoria’s Waste Management Association, told Ross and John Victoria has no market for recyclable material, therefore no sustainable plan for Victoria’s recycling future.

“There’s things we can do to both recycle and reuse, but unless there’s a market there, that’s sustainable, that businesses can be sure that they get a return on their investment, it just won’t happen for us,” Peter said.

“For example if councils started saying, we’re going to make all our park benches from recycled material, someone would start making park benches out of recycled plastic or cardboard.”

“So what you’re saying is, there’s no market for all these recyclables?” John asked.

“Yes,” Peter replied.

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“They’ve got markets in China for sustainable manufacturing, we’ve got to do the same,” he said.

“We have to sit down and work this out properly, so we have sustainable recycling not just collection.”