Thousands of tonnes of waste will have to be transported from the Australian Capital Territory to other metropolitan capitals after a fire at one of the largest recycling centres in Australia.
The fire largely destroyed the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Hume on Monday night – another setback for the nation’s recycling efforts, which have been struggling to keep pace with demand.
The ACT’s city services minister, Chris Steel, said the government was working with facility operator Re.Group to find an alternative location to process the materials interstate.
“They have a number of MRFs in metropolitan capitals in Australia, including Sydney and Adelaide,” he said.
“It will have to be transported probably by truck for processing interstate which is not ideal from a transport emissions point of view.”
One option being considered is Re.Group’s recovery facility in the Sydney suburb of Enfield, but Steel said it was possible multiple facilities would be used.
The Hume site was one of the largest MRFs in Australia and played a significant role in recycling not just for the ACT but also six regional New South Wales councils that sent waste material to be processed.
About 280 tonnes of waste cardboard, aluminium, plastics, paper and glass are now being stored at the Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre in the Canberrasuburb of Symonston, with some sorting happening on site.
But Steel said a solution would need to be found within coming weeks because there was a limit on how much could be kept in storage at the centre.
The Hume centre processed about 60,000 tonnes of waste a year.
While Steel acknowledged trucking the waste elsewhere was problematic from an emissions perspective, he said that once processed, a lot of the recycled material from the Hume facility had been transported to other states for remanufacturing into other products.
The Hume fire is the latest setback for the recycling sector and follows the collapse of the REDcycle soft plastics recycling program.
The ACT and federal governments are jointly funding construction of a new MRF in the territory, adjacent to the existing centre.
The new centre was due for completion in late 2024 but Steel said it would now need to be expedited.
The ACT government hopes optical sorting technology at the new centre will enable it to eliminate mixed plastics as a waste stream, which was the only portion of the territory’s waste that had been sent overseas before the waste export ban.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Steel said while the cause was still unknown it was a good reminder for households to avoid putting hazardous materials into household waste bins.
“There are hazardous materials that are put into waste that shouldn’t be: batteries, vapes are becoming more common, gas cylinders,” he said.
He said households should check their local council websites for information on where to dispose of these goods safely and for a list of items that can be disposed of in household recycling bins.
