Further Background on Odours from Brooklyn

EPA recognises that odours in the Brooklyn and Yarraville area continue to impact on local air quality. EPA has received many pollution reports from local residents about offensive odours. After investigations of these reports, EPA has identified several industrial odour sources in the area that require improvements to eliminate their odour impact. EPA is requiring these responsible industries to take actions to address the problem.

EPA relies on the community to report pollution incidents by phoning EPA’s Pollution Watch Line service on 9695 2777. This assists EPA to identify the cause and source of the problem. You should notify EPA as soon as you can so that prompt action can be taken.

EPA Officers use information like wind data, recent field investigations and information from the community to determine possible odour sources. Follow-up action may include on-site attendance after consideration of the extent, nature, and severity of pollution reports from the community.

There are several industries in the Brooklyn industrial area that have the potential to be odorous. Examples of some of these sites include landfills, abattoirs, composting facilities, waste recyclers, rendering works and edible oil processing works.

Cargill Processing Limited, SITA Australia Limited and the Swift Australia (Southern) Pty Ltd are particular sources of odour in the area.

The table below details some of the potential odour sources in the Brooklyn, Sunshine and Yarraville area, and provides typical descriptions of odours from those sources.

Site name(s)	Address	Type of operation	Description of odour
Cargill Processing	Corner of Somerville and Holmwood Roads, Brooklyn.	Edible oilseed crushing and processing.	"nutty" or "oily cooking" odour.
SITA Australia (formerly Organic Recyclers)	Bunting Road, Brooklyn.	Open windrow composting of green waste.	"compost", "fertiliser" or "organic waste" odour.
Swift Australia (Southern) (formerly Tasman Group Services / Baybrick)	Industry Park Drive, Brooklyn.	Abattoir and rendering plant.	"cooking/burnt meat" or "animal manure" odour.
Brooklyn Meat Processors (aka Cedar Meats)	Geelong Road, Brooklyn	Abattoir	"animal manure" odour.
Australian Tallow Producers	Geelong Road, Brooklyn	Rendering plant	"cooking/burnt meat" odour
Huntsman Chemicals	Somerville Road, Brooklyn	Chemical manufacturing	“chemical” or “sweet” odour
Several landfills, quarries, recycling facilities.	In the area bounded by the Kororoit Creek, Geelong Road, Bunting Road and McDonald Road.	Disposal and/or recycling of waste.	"garbage", "rubbish-bin" or "tip" odour.

What can EPA do?

There are a variety of tools available to EPA to manage industrial sites such as those in the Brooklyn industrial area.

EPA licences govern some industries and put in place controls for emissions, monitoring and reporting. There are several sites within the Brooklyn industrial area that are licensed by EPA to control their operations. Further information in relation to EPA licenses is available.

Pollution abatement notices (PANs) may also be served to require actions to reduce odours. The PAN may specify measures to be taken, operations or activities to be conducted, or require certain equipment to be operated in a particular way. Further information in relation to PANs is available.

EPA may work with a site to develop an Environment Improvement Plan (EIP), which is an action plan that includes goals and timelines for improving the environmental performance of a site. EPA encourages industry to take responsibility for its environmental management and identify and implement the most effective means of reducing odour. Input from the community forms an important part of this process.

In addition to non-regulatory measures, EPA uses enforcement action to ensure compliance with the Environment Protection Act.  Enforcement measures include warnings, directions, notices, fines, or prosecutions. The main objective of EPA’s actions is to eliminate offensive odours in the community.

Key odour sources and recent action

EPA has continuously monitored the progress being made by key odorous sites in the Brooklyn industrial area.  Specifically:

• EPA has inspected each facility on numerous occasions; 
• EPA Air Quality Scientists have undertaken odour testing at each facility to help determine priority areas for action; and
• EPA has provided updates to this website.

Below are key sites identified by EPA as having the potential to impact on odour amenity in the Brooklyn and Yarraville area.

Cargill Processing – is located at the corner of Somerville Road and Holmwood Road and operates a facility that crushes seeds such as canola in order to extract the oils for sale. Odours from this site have been described as ‘nutty’, ‘oily cooking smell’ and are sometimes mistaken as a ‘rendering’ odour.

November 2005 - EPA required Cargill to install the bio-filters as a result of an odour audit.

2 September 2007– Odour from Cargill resulted in 9 reports from the public in a four hour period  - EPA Victoria fined Cargill $5506 for breaching its licence

September 2007 Cargill successfully installed both bio-filters. With two bio-filters fully operational there has been a significant reduction in off-site odour emissions.

2 November 2007 -  EPA issued a licence amendment requiring Cargill to undertake regular monitoring of the biofilters and investigate options for optimised biofilter performance.

Works for 2008 (which will be directed through the licence) will focus on identifying and controlling any fugitive emissions.  Community input into future improvements is welcome.

SITA Australia (formerly Organic Recyclers) –is located in Bunting Road and operates an open-air windrow composting facility treating domestic and commercial green waste. Odours from this site are generally described as a ‘compost’ or ‘organic’ smell.

2006 - EPA restricted the volume of material processed at the facility, having identified that the volume of green waste arriving at the site exceeded the available space to process it. The restriction has allowed operations at the site to be streamlined, reducing the accumulation of green waste awaiting processing. This has resulted in a reduction in odour reports.

August 2007 - SITA Australia purchased the composting business and EPA informed the new owner that it expects significant ongoing improvement. As detailed below, SITA Australia has undertaken improvement works since taking ownership that have noticeably reduced the volume of processed and un-processed organic material stockpiled at the facility.  It is expected that this will provide efficient green waste processing and eliminate the occurrence of backlog stockpiles, which have historically been significant odour sources.

Actions implemented by SITA Australia since early-August 2007:

• Removal of up to 5,000 cubic metres of oversize material off-site, removing a back-log of oversize material on-site at time of handover
• Removal of 3,000 cubic metres of unscreened compost from windrows off-site to make additional space for predicted volume increases in spring 2007
• Reprofiled the hard stand within the processing area;
• Constructed new site offices and amenities; and

• Installed an on-site weather monitoring station.

EPA is negotiating further, longer term, substantial upgrades with SITA, which will be required through licence.  EPA welcomes community input into these plans.

Swift Australia (Southern) Pty Ltd – (formerly Tasman Group Services / Baybrick) – is located in Industry Park Drive and operates an abattoir and rendering plant. The rendering plant cooks the residual material produced by the abattoir in order to extract tallow (fat) and meat meal. Odours from this site have been described as ‘cooking meat’ and ‘animal manure’.

Following an incident in 2006, EPA required Tasman to complete an audit of its stormwater system. EPA has served charges for for aggravated pollution against Tasman and former director Pierre Cabral – this is due in court in December 2008  .

12 September 2007 - EPA amended the licence for the rendering plant and, issued a PAN for the abattoir that requires Tasman to:

• Identify detailed measures to rectify water management at the site (report due by end November 2007); and
• Identify detailed measures to rectify odour management at the site (report due by end December 2007).

These reports have now been submitted to EPA and the licence and PAN has now been amended to begin the improvement process.

Tasman presented the findings of these reports at the BCRG meeting of the 19th of March 2008 and a summary of the report (Adobe PDF file, 59KB) can be found here.

Brooklyn Landfills – There are several landfills that operate in the Brooklyn area. Although EPA has not identified a particular landfill that is causing an odour impact in the area, landfills require appropriate day to day management to ensure that odours are prevented. Odours from landfills can be described as ‘garbage’ or, ‘tip-type’ smells.

The EPA licences for these facilities require that cover material be placed upon the waste at the end of each day to eliminate the potential for emission of offensive odours. EPA regularly inspects these landfills to ensure that cover is being applied and that adequate management practices are in place to prevent emission of offensive odours.

Top