Fire at Mildura Landfill

Published on 04 March 2019

Council staff and the Country Fire Authority responded to a fire at the Mildura Landfill about 4pm on Saturday, 2 March.

Thanks to the quick response by Council staff and the CFA, the fire was quickly controlled and extinguished.

The fire did not threaten people using the landfill at the time, and no-one was injured.

In an attempt to stop our kerbside recycling going to landfill, Council was temporarily stockpiling this material at our landfill site in the hope that SKM, our recycling processor, would be operational again in the near future.

Although all fire management precautions were in place for storing the material, the stockpile caught fire on Saturday afternoon. The cause of the fire is unknown at this stage.

As a result of the weekend’s fire, Council will be landfilling our kerbside recycling until SKM are operational again.

In the meantime, we urge residents to continue recycling and not use their yellow-lidded recycling bin as a rubbish bin.

We may be given less than 24 hours’ notice that SKM are operating again, which will allow us to begin recycling again very quickly. Our community has good recycling habits and we don’t want that to stop.

Council will inform the community once SKM are operational again, or an alternative option is found. We will be one of many Councils in Victoria that have been forced to landfill recycling since EPA stopped SKM from operating due to an abatement notice.

Media enquiries 
Ben Piscioneri
p) (03) 5018 8689 
e) ben.piscioneri@mildura.vic.gov.au