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Key points
- The Environment Protection Agency has launched proceedings in the Supreme Court against SBI Landfill and its directors alleging a range of serious non-compliance with environment protection laws.
- The agency is seeking civil penalties and injunctions against SBI Landfill with penalties that could exceed $1.8 million for the company and $360,000 for each director.
- Between 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2023 the EPA received over 5,080 community pollution reports by 800 people of offensive odours from the landfill which could be smelt at over 200 different locations outside the landfill.
The operator of a tip in Melbourne’s south-east is being taken to court over smells coming from the site that locals have described as putrid and “disgusting like rotten eggs”.
The Environment Protection Authority has taken SBI Landfill – a construction and demolition waste tip on Ballarto Road in Cranbourne – and its directors to the Supreme Court, alleging serious non-compliance with environment protection laws.
The EPA has launched legal action against the operators of a tip in Cranbourne after residents reported foul odours coming from the site.Credit: Simon Schluter/The Age
The EPA claims SBI Landfill did not comply with the requirements of its operating licence and failed to meet its general environmental duty because of the prolonged impact the odour from its landfill is having on residents.
The agency is seeking civil penalties and injunctions against the company, which could be fined more than $1.8 million, while each director could be fined $360,000.
The EPA is also asking the court to issue interim orders that SBI Landfill stops accepting waste until it improves management of the site and prevents what the agency describes as the “unacceptable impacts on human health and the environment”.
A statement of claim filed by the EPA outlines “offensive odours” that EPA officers described as having “slight rotten egg characteristics with landfill gas undertones” and “a strong landfill odour with slight burnt undertones”.
The City of Casey, which covers Cranbourne, approved the site in June 2015 and issued a licence to SBI Landfill to operate a solid inert landfill there in March 2020.
The following year, residents from nearby suburbs – including Lynbrook, Hampton Park, Narre Warren South, North Cranbourne and Lyndhurst – began complaining about foul smells coming from the site.
Between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023, the EPA received more than 5080 community pollution reports by 800 people. The reports described offensive odours that could be smelt at more than 200 different locations outside the landfill.
Viv Paine, Lynbrook Residents Association spokesman, said the smells coming from the tip had permeated the entire community.Credit: Simon Schluter/The Age
Viv Paine, spokesman for the Lynbrook Residents Association, said the landfill odours were affecting the entire community.
“It is appalling for the residents that live around here because the successive owners of the tip cannot control the huge volumes of leachate that seep out of the tip,” he said. “You can typically smell it in the early morning and late evenings on cool, still nights, and it permeates the entire community.
”The EPA are the only hope of saving our community from this.”
City of Casey resident Alex said her baby was five weeks old when the landfill odours first emerged. She ended up moving to her parents’ house in Geelong for a while to try to escape the odours.
“At its worst, you could smell it right through your house, taste it in your mouth,” she said. “It made you feel nauseous and have a headache – it was disgusting, like rotten eggs. It smelt so bad that I thought it has to have some impact on your health.”
The Age reported last year that residents near the landfill had endured odours for months, leaving them unable to open their windows and doors.
The EPA claims SBI Landfill failed to maintain an appropriate LFG flare – a system for extracting and processing landfill gas – among other things, to manage the smell.
“SBI, in operating the landfill, knew or ought to have reasonably known, that there was a risk of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste from the landfill,” the EPA said in its statement of claim.
It is not the first time locals have been exposed to foul-smelling and potentially harmful gases in the area.
More than 450 residents launched a class action lawsuit against the City of Casey and the EPA in 2008 after a dangerous methane gas leak at a closed municipal tip on Stevensons Road in Cranbourne led to the evacuation of hundreds of people.
Residents were awarded more than $23 million in combined compensation in 2011.
SBI Landfill did not respond to a request for comment.
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