Fine for huge sanitizer dump

EPA has tracked down the parties involved in the illegal dumping of 370,000 litres of hand sanitizer on a Gippsland property.

The trail started with the Rellik Group which states on its website: ‘Rellik specialises in product destruction in an ethical and regulated manner to benefit all parties involved, and ultimately the Australian economy and environment.’

Instead, waste management company Rellik subcontracted to a company which trucked hundreds of pallets of expired hand sanitiser from a Truganina warehouse officially bound for a recycling facility in Moama NSW, that instead went to a rural property in Woodside in Gippsland’s Wellington Shire.

EPA officers followed up on April 2024 community reports of suspicious trucking activity to find the stacked sanitizer and issued the property owner, who did not have a license to accept it, with an order to remove it to a licensed facility which has now been done.

The Rellik Group Pty Ltd entered a plea of guilty in the Sale Magistrates’ Court on 9 September.

The court imposed a $10,000 fine without conviction and ordered the company to pay EPA Victoria $4,000 in court costs and publicise the details of the case in a trade industry publication. Officer of the Company, Mr Marcus Galbraith also plead guilty, and received, without conviction, a 12-month good behaviour bond. Mr Galbraith will also pay $2,000 to the court fund.