By Benjamin Millar
Inner-west residents are demanding more urgency by authorities that regulate industrial waste companies following the latest toxic blaze.
A massive chemical fire last Friday tore through a chemical waste plant in Campbellfield where a company had stockpiled more than double the 150,000 litres of waste for which it was licensed.
The Environment Protection Authority had suspended Bradfield Industrial Service’s licence 15 days earlier and had inspected the premises the day before the fire.
The EPA said storage containers on the site were not adequately labelled and were being handled outside an adequately bounded area.
Angry residents attended a community meeting last Friday demanding to know what the EPA and other agencies were doing to prevent future incidents, echoing the concerns raised by those impacted by the Tottenham fire last August.
The fire re-ignited anxiety and anger in the inner-west, where the community is still dealing with the toxic fall-out from the August 30 fire.
Sue Vittori, from Friends of Cruickshank Park, said Friday’s incident confirmed that such “chemical time bombs” should not be located anywhere near residential areas.
“It’s unbelievable that yet another toxic chemical warehouse has gone up … threatening the health of more Melbourne communities,” she said.
“There needs to be a zero-tolerance policy for this land use in residential areas.”
Brooklyn resident Carmen Largaiolli said the authorities tasked as watchdogs for the industry need to be better resourced and proactive.
“There are so many cowboys out there doing the wrong thing, they need more people doing spot checks of industry – not just those who are registered, but at other locations as well,” she said.
Ms Largaiolli said her family suffered respiratory issues in the wake of the Tottenham fire and she wanted to see much more focus on the human health impacts of such events.
“Human health gets put on the backburner – all they do is tell us to go indoors and close the windows and I don’t think that’s good enough,” she said.
“The Department of Health is focusing on hospital admissions, but if you go to a GP they are not going to report it.”
Australian Workers’ Union secretary Ben Davis said the chemical waste industry was plagued by cowboy operators exploiting vulnerable workers.
He said there needed to be greater transparency, including a public register of properties where chemical waste was stored and better tracking of waste to understand where it was being stockpiled.
“The EPA needs more resources and we need a list of these sites and what each of them are licensed to hold.”
