A major waste company and its former director have been fined more than $1.25 million over a massive fire which burned for almost two weeks, clouding suburbs in toxic smoke and forcing residents to flee their homes.
The 2017 blaze at the recycling plant at Coolaroo, in Melbourne’s north, triggered a statewide emergency response as it raged out of control for two days, with toxic smoke reaching neighbouring homes and industrial sites.
Robert Italiano, 51, was on Wednesday convicted over his involvement as director in the blaze and fined $140,000, while the company was convicted and fined a total of $1.14 million in the County Court.
As the sole director of the business, Judge John Kelly said Italiano knew the history of fires that broke out and was responsible for how much waste was brought in.
“Your decision to increase (materials) at Coolaroo increased the likelihood of uncontainable fire breaking out,” he said in his sentencing.
Before the July fire, the director had been working to reduce the amount of recyclable material at the plant, which was responsible for processing 60 per cent of Victoria’s recyclable waste, after a blaze five months earlier in February 2017.
Italiano had been trying to divert material to other sites in Derrimut and Laverton to avoid putting it into landfill, however tonnes of recycling material at Coolaroo accumulated in piles outside.
Mounds of commingled waste stacked on top of each other reaching four metres high over a 25,000-square-metre area continued to grow and overflowed into the next door glass recycling facility.
Four more fires occurred in the months following the February fire, including the final, out-of-control inferno.
A fire in one of the recycling piles on July 9 was never properly put out by fire crews, leading to a blaze on July 12 and the major blaze on July 13.
Judge Kelly said the facility had accumulated an additional 1.7 million kilograms of waste in the weeks before the major blaze, despite earlier fires reducing capacity to process the material.
Toxic air pollution from the Coolaroo plant fire was up to 16 times above safe levels.
“The pollution produced by (the fire) rendered it uncontainable due to the volume and method of waste storage on site,” the judge said.
The air pollution so toxic it was 15 to 16 times above safe levels.
Italiano had pleaded guilty to polluting the atmosphere over the fire at SKM Services’ recycling plant on July 13, 2017.
The company, which has since been placed into liquidation, was found guilty of aggravated pollution by negligently causing or permitting an environmental hazard which resulted in a substantial risk of a serious threat to public health and three charges of polluting the atmosphere.
