By Melanie Bakewell
Community groups in Melbourne’s west are calling for accountability and preventative action in the wake of an increasing number of toxic factory fires.
In recent months alone the west has endured the hazards of several dangerous fires in Footscray, Deer Park, and Derrimut where more than 180 firefighters took four days to extinguish a chemical fire.
The Anti-Toxic Waste Alliance (A-TWA) has held a rally outside the EPA Metropolitan Office in Sunshine, calling for increased regulation and resources for firefighters. They’re also demanding the establishment of a western suburbs task-force with power to audit and enforce community, worker and environmental protections against industry non-compliance.
A-TWA is made up of 39 community and environmental groups which combined forces after an industrial fire in West Footscray in 2018, but rally organiser Catherine Roberston says the alliance’s roots can be traced back to the catastrophic 1991 Coode Island fire when a community alliance formed to highlight ongoing industry impacts on local residents.
“The Western suburbs have a high level of heavy industry, which carries with it all these huge risks to community, like these toxic fires,” says Catherine. “Obviously something’s failing here because it’s just an ongoing problem.”
“No one felt like anything had changed after the last major fire. It’s out of sight, out of mind. Until they blow up.”
In October 2023, the same Derrimut factory which exploded this year, was the site of another chemical explosion that killed a 44 year-old worker. Other incidents like the 2018 chemical fire in West Footscray, the 2017 Coolaroo fire at a recycling plant, and the 2019 Campbellfriend fire remain etched in the collective memory, while a heritage-listed factory in Footscray burnt down in early August.
A parliamentary Inquiry into Recycling and Waste Management was set up in 2019. It found that too much industrial and chemical waste was being stockpiled for too long, increasing the risk to the community. It also recommended factories stockpiling hazardous waste be mandated to provide chemical manifests to EPA.
“One of our demands has been setting up a western suburb specific task force that is empowered to not only audit these high risk factories, but also introduce environmental and worksite protections for the employees there,” says Catherine.
“We want harsher regulation and penalties for these companies in the area and a serious auditing as well of how many of these factories exist.”
The rally also called for adequate resourcing for western firefighting units, following claims of equipment failure from the United Firefighters Union and ongoing work health and safety concerns about workers’ ongoing exposure to unknown chemicals.
“We need to be pre-empting the fact that they’re going to have to face these things in the future,” Catherine says. “We’re aware of the fact that we’re taking on systemic priorities that are failing us. Those things don’t change overnight but we need an immediate and urgent response here in the west.”
In the 2024 State budget, $44 million was earmarked for the EPA ‘to crack down on illegal dumping and other waste crimes.’
