Recycling material from the Hume Material Recovery Facility (MRF) is being diverted to a Western Sydney recycling centre following the Boxing Day fire, said ACT Minister for Transport and City Services Chris Steel.

Approximately 36 tonnes of material per day is being transported to Sydney and the ACT Government is hoping to increase the tonnage when more trucks become available, Mr Steel said.

It’s “business as usual” for ACT residents; households should continue to use the Container Deposit Scheme, the Recycling Drop-off Centres, and their yellow-lidded recycle bin.

The clean-up effort is continuing at the Hume site and is expected to be completed within the coming weeks, subject to final structural engineers reports.

Mr Steel said although investigations are being undertaken, a definitive cause of the fire “may not be established”.

Most of the site was destroyed in the fire apart from the outside bailing and storage areas, which remained unaffected.

The recycled material has been temporarily stored at the Mugga Lane Recourse Management Centre.

Glass containers recycled through the ACT Container Deposit Scheme are currently being stored onsite while longer-term arrangements are being established.

“In the medium-term it is likely the MRF site, once made safe, will be operational in some capacity. At a minimum, the site could be used as a transfer station to other recycling facilities while work continues on the development of a new MRF for the ACT, previously announced in August 2022,” said Mr Steel.

“The government had already decided to fund a brand new modern MRF to ensure that the ACT has modern recycling infrastructure. Work has begun to examine options to expedite the building of this new facility.”

The proposed plant will have new technology designed to deliver the capacity to sort, separate, and process materials for the entire Canberra region.

Mr Steel said this will create higher quality resources with a higher value of uses, including remanufacturing.

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