Court order funds environmental works

On 4 December 2007 at Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court, Amcor Packaging (Australia) Pty Ltd (the “defendant”) pleaded guilty to a water pollution charge brought by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in relation to a discharge of lubricating oil from its Fairfield Recycled Paper Mill into the Yarra River on 8 June 2007.
On 8 June 2007, the shaft of one of the rollers used to dry and flatten paper pulp broke, causing a lubricating oil storage tank to overflow into a bund. Contracted workers needed to access equipment within the bund, and pumped some of the oily liquid into an unmarked drain, not knowing that it was a drain leading to the Yarra River. The resulting oil sheen spread over eight kilometres of the Yarra, downstream to as far as Gipps Street in Abbotsford.
The Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court convicted and ordered it to pay a total of $80,000 to Darebin Creek Management Committee Inc. and South Alphington & Fairfield Civic Association Inc. to conduct drain-labelling within Darebin Creek catchment, stormwater education within schools in the catchment and revegetation of land near the Alphington Park Wetlands.
Amcor has undertaken to identify the discharge location of all drains at the Fairfield Recycled Paper Mill, correct its drainage maps of the site and mark all stormwater drains appropriately in order to prevent a recurrence of this incident.

The Court also ordered publication of this notice.