INVERELL’S recycling plant was closed down yesterday afternoon and will probably remain so for at least some of today after asbestos was found in a truckload of supposedly recyclable material.
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The old fibro was detected as it came through the plant on the conveyor where workers sort materials.
No one knew how much fibro was in the truckload and workers were quickly evacuated from their workplaces while steps were taken to get rid of the threat.
Manager Carl Irwin said the plant has lost a full day’s production.
“It’s old fibro and it’s gone right through the system, we have 450 bins that could also be contaminated,” Carl said.
“The whole lot will need to be buried now.
“Perhaps whoever did this could be very ill informed about asbestos, I don’t know; but whoever it was should have dealt with it the right way.”
The recycling plant is run by Northaven Ltd. An employee of Northaven, Wayne Giles, was the first to spot the contamination.
“We were lucky to have had Wayne here at the time, he holds all the relevant tickets and when he saw it he came down to me and we closed everything down,” Carl said.
“We’ve only found the bits we can see. We’ve been wanting to do random inspections and this is the reason why.
Wayne was less than impressed with the find.
“It’s not good, very bad, deadly,” he said.
“This is carelessness. Someone just didn’t want to pay the dump fee to get rid of it. They’re not worried about people’s safety.”
Unfortunately this sort of thing has been going on for some time; any of the workers will tell you about it.
They sort what you put in your recycle bin by hand; no other way to do it.
They wear gloves of course but imagine the danger an infected syringe poses to them.
A sharp needle has no trouble penetrating work gloves. Then there is stuff that is just plain disgusting.
Sharon Bright is a worker who has lately had to cope with other people’s thought-lessness.
“On a day to day basis we get dirty nappies, car parts, a video camera came through today, bed-linen, pillows, toys, electrical stuff…” Shar-on said.
“We get sharps through … It’s not safe for me or the other employees.
“People know what they can and can’t put in their bins, but they still go and do it anyway because they’re too lazy to put it in their rubbish bins.”
Peter Munn is also a Northaven worker who said there is a lot in the bins that shouldn’t be there.
“We’ve been getting dead animals, animal skins, a lot of rubbish, grass clippings and a lot of nappies, syringes,” Peter said.
“We sort through the rubbish with our gloves on, but you don’t know what’s underneath paper or plastic when you stick your hand down there, you could have a syringe or something stick in your hand … you’ve just got to be so careful and have your eyes on the ball at all time.”
Peter said he would like to see people come and actually see how they work and what comes through the system here and how it’s done.
“We’re throwing away a lot of stuff because of the rubbish that’s in it, if people were a bit more careful about recycling we could recycle a lot more,” Peter said.
An open day is planned for January.
