Recycling pain has options

By Kate Taylor

Moorabool Shire Council will be carefully considering all recycling options.

The collapse of SKM Recycling left councils across the state taking residents’ recycling to landfill, including Moorabool.

The Moorabool News followed up with council on the issue after the City of Ballarat announced that its recycling will commence – but that residents would be provided with a separate crate for glass recycling that must be dropped off at collection points.

“At the moment we’re back in the recycling game – it’s going to recycling, but not all of it,” Mayor Cr Paul Tatchell explained.

But he said that Moorabool will not be immediately adopting the separate-glass idea.

“It’s one thing to put a glass solution in place but you have to have an end game – is there a market? And what is the cost of it? This is headline grabbing stuff with no plan.

“We’re not putting together a knee-jerk reaction to this problem, we’ll put together a long-term plan. By putting our rubbish on boats to China, we’ve been kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with,” Cr Tatchell said.

He also told the Moorabool News council has not yet received a response to a letter sent to the state government, at the request of Councillor Tom Sullivan, asking for a refund of the money paid by council as levies on recycling dumped at landfill during the recycling crisis – money that goes to the state government.

“No, we haven’t had a response, and we’re probably unlikely to. There’s no way known the government’s going to give this money back. They’re using it to help prop up their AAA credit rating because they’ve overspent,” Cr Tatchell said.