FRANKSTON Council are not among the 20 councils that have been forced to dump their recycling in landfill in the wake two SKM facilities being shut down.
Frankston mayor Michael O’Reilly told The Times that “the collection and processing of around 550-600 tonnes of recyclable waste each fortnight will continue as usual.”
“Frankston City Council recycling collection and processing is managed by Solo Resource Recovery and Polytrade,” he said.
“Council would like to take this opportunity to remind all residents to reduce the contamination of recyclables by rinsing containers before placing them in their recycling bins.”
Neighbouring councils in Kingston and Mornington have been swept up in the crisis and have had to divert hundreds of tonnes of recycled material into landfill.
Kingston Council made an “urgent” deal with recycling provider Polytrade to save some of the municipality’s recycling waste from landfill.
Kingston mayor Georgina Oxley said that the deal with Polytrade will see 20 per cent of Kingston’s recycling per day saved from landfill.
“It is extremely disappointing that Kingston, along with many other councils, has been forced to temporarily divert recycling to landfill,” she said.
“Kingston has managed to ensure 20% of all recyclable materials are sent for proper processing to Polytrade each day. However, Polytrade are limited by their plant capacity. Unfortunately, the balance of collected materials continues to be sent to landfill.”
As of 20 February, approximately 240 tonnes of recyclable material from the Kingston municipality had ended up in landfill.
“We are working to minimise the disruption,” Cr Oxley said.
“Some community members have voluntarily held off on putting out their recycling bin for a fortnight to minimise the amount of waste sent to material and we appreciate their assistance.
“We hope to have our recycling service back up and running very soon, so I would urge the community to keep up their good habits and keep sorting your recycling material as normal.”
130 tonnes of the Mornington Peninsula Shire’s recyclable waste are being “temporarily” stored at the transfer station in Rye, which is now at capacity.
Shortcomings in the state’s recycling operations were exposed on 15 February when the EPA ordered processing giant SKM to stop drops at its Coolaroo and Laverton sites over concerns the stockpiled plastic posed a fire hazard.