By Laura Michell
A Coolaroo glass recycling company that was the site of two fires in the past three week has been ordered to stop accepting waste.
Glass Recovery Services is the third Hume company to be ordered to stop accepting waste in the past two months as part of an Environment Protection Authority crackdown on dangerous stockpiles of waste.
The EPA ordered SKM to stop accepting waste at its Coolaroo and Laverton North sites on February 14, while Bradbury Industrial Services in Campbellfield had its licence suspended on March 21.
EPA Resource Recovery Facilities Audit Taskforce manager Danny Childs said the EPA’s decision to ban Glass Recovery Services from accepting combustible recyclable waste followed the company’s failure to comply with previous notices about the fire risks of its stockpiles.
The MFB was called to fires at Glass Recovery Services in Maffra Street on March 29 and April 12.
“The company’s stockpiles are in breach of the Waste Management Policy and it cannot receive further combustible waste at the site until EPA is satisfied it has regained compliance,” Mr Childs said.
“A large volume of glass waste it has received at the site has been contaminated with other types of waste, such as mixed plastics and paper and has resulted in an increased fire risk.”
Mr Childs said the Waste Management Policy required waste to be stored with appropriate separation distances between stockpiles, buildings or premises boundaries.
“Thankfully, MFB was able to control both recent the fires, preventing them spreading,” he said.
“But as a result EPA has issued the company with a notice that requires it to closely monitor its stockpiles to ensure any further hotspots are detected early to prevent any further fires occurring.”
Glass Recovery Services is also the subject of an EPA investigation for not complying with a notice issued earlier this year requiring the removal of identified industrial waste from the site.
