SOLO Resource Recovery has been hired to collect Mornington Peninsula Shire’s household recycled waste.
The new contract means recyclable waste collected for the shire will not go to landfill.
The change comes after discredited former contractor SKM put a sudden stop on all incoming material late last week. The company was wound up by the Supreme Court last Friday (2 August).
The signing with Solo means there will be no disruption to kerbside collections.
The shire and 30 other municipalities was told on Thursday night 25 July that SKM would “cease accepting recyclable material effective immediately”.
The mayor Cr David Gill described the shutdown as “devastating”.
He said the council had “worked quickly to enact plans to engage a new provider”.
Collected recyclable material started going to Solo the following Monday.
“Council has been proactive in working with the industry to source an alternate provider and minimise the impact to our community and the peninsula’s precious environment,” Cr Gill said.
“We were prepared and have been able to contain the damage to just one day’s worth of collections [whereas] many other councils will be forced to landfill tonnes of recyclables.”
In a slap at the state government, he said: “Advanced warning from the state government that further compliance matters at SKM were being addressed would have allowed us and other councils to minimise the environmental impact by bringing forward contingency plans for a potential shut down.
“The state government has again failed to support our community by ensuring that the landfill levy [estimated at $500,000] collected from all tip users is used to fix this environmental crisis.
“Now it’s more important than ever to recycle right and reduce the amount of waste we produce.”
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 6 August 2019
