By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A proposed electronic-waste recycling facility near the popular Greaves Reserve, Dandenong has been given the ‘green light’ by the state’s planning tribunal despite Greater Dandenong Council’s opposition.
The proposed Ace Recycling Group Pty Ltd factory at 32-34 Bennet Street is in a light-industrial zone and a State-significant industrial precinct that supports resource recovery as a use.
The facility would collect, sort and manually dismantle e-waste such as TVs, laptops and phones, and pack e-waste.
Component parts like circuit boards, batteries, hard drives, fans, power boxes, metals, cathode ray tubes. LCD panels, glass would be taken offsite for recycling.
Plastics would be sorted by polymer types and washed, crushed and made into pellets onsite. The pellets would be shipped for use in new products.
However, Greater Dandenong was concerned about the noise of traffic movements and unloading – and its impact on amenity in “significant” open space at neighbouring Greaves Reserve.
The council’s Open Space Strategy 2020-‘23, which seeks to improve the amenity and quality of its open spaces, specifically highlights Greaves Reserve.
All year round, the reserve hosts a wide array of concerts, sports and the annual Dandenong Show.
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal deputy president Teresa Bisucci and member Claire Bennett found the e-waste proposal had “minimal” noise impacts for users of the reserve or a nearby residential zone.
Noise would be minimised due to operations being inside a building, running from 8am-4pm on weekdays, and involving the manual dismantling of e-waste.
The sounds of unloading and trucks was similar to other businesses in the zone, with already background noise from the train line, Railway Parade, B-Double approved Sinclair Road and other nearby industries, the members noted.
The site is also directly south of the council’s own works depot – which appeared to be used for industrial purposes, they stated.
“Greaves Reserve is a very large area of open space where users can disperse if any form of noise emanating from the industrial area or the council Operations Centre is disturbing them.”
VCAT noted that the nearest residential zone was about 360 metres from the site – closer than the minimum 500 metre buffer for used plastic treatments.
However, Environment Protection Authority Victoria granted registration for the “small-scale waste and recycling facility”, didn’t object to it or require any further permit conditions.
It found the risk of adverse amenity impacts were “likely to be low”.
Further, the Open Space Strategy was “not directed at considering the impacts of nearby uses to the amenity of open spaces”, VCAT stated.
“We note the strong support for resource recovery and materials recycling in the planning scheme,” the VCAT members stated.
