Adam Perry argues the case for his Fyshwick metal recycling plans

The conjecture is around future volumes as any company rightly invests for increased profit. The new machinery results in a less contaminated greatly compressed product but the dust then is more toxic because the process of shredding cars is in the open air blowing over Fyshwick. Neither the Waste Management Regulation Licence nor the EPA Authorisation will place a limit on waste in and out because of profit entitlement with a right to expand. The waste amounts are reported by the company. If as you say there are some major heavy industries already in the light industrial area why on earth would you allow more? The waste metal is only throughput and does nothing value added for Fyshwick, which is changing in line with any inner light industrial suburb of a major city. Only a few sites in Fyshwick are IZ.1 General industry and Mr Perry’s proposed enhanced vehicle fragmentising is not located on one of them.

Mr Perry’s Access Recycling metal recycling plans at 15 Lithgow St constitute a major transformation from a metal recycling to a metal processing plant more suited to a heavy industrial area such as mentioned in Adelaide with the nearest residence more than a km away. Mr Perry’s associated company, CRS’s rail freight terminal is heavy rail infrastructure which common sense would dictate should be surrounded by an IZ.1 – General industry area. The CRS massive 7250m2 shed planned for the former adjacent Shell site pictured in the RiotACT article at 16 Ipswich St Fyshwick is intended to receive up to 300,000 tonnes per annum of waste from outside Fyshwick. At the site pictured is also allowed to be installed an extra set of traffic lights to enable heavy vehicles exiting from the waste hub to turn right to access the Monaro highway. These truck operated lights are around 100m to the north of the existing Wiluna and Ipswich T-intersection lights. Thus heavy vehicles on the downhill run from the rail bridge and crossing to the left to turn into Wiluna St will have a dangerous stop. Additionally, Mr Perry has met with ACT Government officers in a bid to secure the future green bin putrescible food and garden organics (FOGO) for rail transfer to Woodlawn landfill 70km away. There is nothing light industrial in this proposed waste hub which is probably why the ACT Government in its Waste Feasibility Study and Market Sounding identified the heavy industrial area (IZ.1) of Hume for major waste facilities. The 10,000 or so weekly visitors to the Molonglo Group’s innovative Dairy Road development and all other Canberrans seeking services and product in Fyshwick will be the losers. We need Fyshwick for people not out of area waste trucks.

There seems to be conjecture around additional volumes. Couldn’t this be resolved by applying a cap on metal volumes to their waste licence, to ensure current levels are maintained?
I have driven past the metal recycling facility a couple of times when visiting Monarch Building Solutions and there are other major heavy industries in the area. I believe we need to be careful not to push through with commercial gentrification in this area and run these businesses out of Fyshwick. These heavy industries have been there for over 20 years.

As a long time worker in Fyshwick, I find the arguments opposed to this facility rather weak and out of touch with the Fyshwick business community.

The site in question is a disused fuel facility from when fuel was transported to Canberra by train, and then sent around the city by truck from this location. Like all petrol stations the land beneath it is polluted and requires significant clean up for most other uses.

This area of Fyshwick is intentionally designed for rail related industry. So is Kingston actually. As such the proposed recycling facility is really perfect for the site.

As to the concerns. The traffic on Ipswich St is a non issue. The street is literally bypassed by the Monaro highway. And Lithgow or Wiluna could be used as an alternative entrance.

The argument that Fyshwick’s future is in mixed retail and commercial (ie, read gentrification into a shopping area for the rich like the DFO area (“poshwick”) or the brewery on Dairy rd) is not only far fetched but completely undesirable. Canberra needs industrial areas, and we need more rail freight.

The argument that this is heavy industry is both irrelevant and wrong. Heavy industry would be like a coal burning Kingston powerhouse, not a sorting facility. And if heavy industry did want to set up in Fyshwick, that’d be great too! Canberra needs some actual industry.

I have been working in Fyshwick for for the past eleven years.

Already we see quite a lot of trucks choking up this area. This includes the metal trucks heading to Access, as well as cement trucks, garbage trucks, courier and transport trucks, from small trucks to the extra long ones. They continually block the roads, carparks and driveways to other businesses when they feel like it, especially around the Take Aways. When we have asked politely to please not block our driveway, we always get the responce, ‘I’m only going to be a few minutes’, not usually so polite. Which is a few minutes (usually at least 10) our customers cannot access our business, per truck, per day.

I think it a bit short sighted to not see that increasing the size to the facility, with more employees, will not increase the ‘throughput’, and with that, increase the amount of trucks and other vehicles. Which will only Add to an already frustrating situation.

The main goal behind any business is, of course, to increase profits. How can Adam say, that they plan to spend all the money I imagine it will take, to upgrade and modernise, without also planning to increase their ‘throughput’? As the saying goes, ‘You spend money to make money’.

As a Narrabundah resident I feel that increasing in any capacity the rubbish in Fyshwick is a horrible idea. With all the recycling and waste center plans that are being proposed in the area Fyshwick is going to lose its way as a light industrial area. The traffic coming from Ipswich Street onto Canberra avenue is already a major traffic issue in my morning commute with trucks constantly blocking the intersection. Adding more trucks is going to turn the whole area into a carpark. Hume already has a tip, why not place all these works there?

Nice to see both sides of the issue being discussed and I must say I don’t really know much about Access’s proposals beyond the fact that when I have been there (2 or 3 times in my life) it has definitely needed to be concreted!

Rob, your comment here and your article last week suggested that there would be a massive increase in throughput if Access gets what it wants, but Adam says they are not seeking to process more material than now – and the things he has listed there don’t necessarily seem to suggest that they would, but that their processes would be more efficient. Can either of you expand on the discrepancy in your arguments?

Also seems a valid point that there is another scrap yard in Fyshwick that has four times the footprint but that is not met with the same objections?

Adam, it’s good to have a respectful debate about this issue. I think its a great thing that your business is upgrading its processes around the importance of fragmentising and recycling end of life motor vehicles and general metal recycling.

I just believe that your operations are in the wrong location and my major concern is with the damage that this heavy industry will do to Fyshwick’s future light industrial and mixed-use retail businesses.

Current development plans for the precinct between Ipswich St and Lithgow St will result in 4 major waste facilities adjacent. These include not just your metal processing that you have outlined, but also your plans for 300,000 tonnes p.a. of waste to be trucked into the former Shell depot for processing, a waste transfer terminal delivering to Woodlawn landfill and the existing waste bin company.

Contrary to your article, you must be well aware that many Fyshwick businesses, including your neighbours and Canberrans, have written submissions rejecting a major waste facility in this location. Fyshwick is already the second largest commercial centre in Canberra, with bright prospects of substantial further growth, all of which are put at risk if this unsuitable pattern of waste industries is further expanded.

I might add that Government plans for the Fyshwick metal recycling operation at Cessnock Street are for commercial and retail development. Additionally, the ACT Government’s own documented Waste Strategy (Page 30) is to develop the Hume Resource Recovery Estate to co-locate resource recovery facilities.