A 'lead exposure event' forced the partial shutdown of a Launceston metal recycler, now it's trying to resume operations

Rochelle Hughes says panic spread when news about elevated lead levels appeared on social media. (ABC News: Morgan Timms)

When Rochelle Hughes’ children’s Little Athletics meet was cancelled, a “lead exposure event” was the last explanation she expected to hear.

“My first thought was that lead’s really dangerous, I know that lead poisoning is really bad,” Ms Hughes said.

“How long’s this been going on, why are we finding out about it now, what’s going on?”

Tasmania’s largest metal recycling facility, Recycal, had been partially shut down by the state’s environmental regulator earlier in the year.

The call was made after the state’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA) found elevated lead levels in dust generated by a metal shredder, with concerns that it may cause a “potential public health risk” in the surrounding suburb of Rocherlea.

Ms Hughes said this resulted in the postponement of Little Athletics for a few weeks.

“The football ground is really close to the recycling plant,” Ms Hughes said.

“It was really concerning that the kids had been potentially exposed for more than a year without anyone being notified.

“Even when it came out, the communication to the community was really poor; I live close to the recycling plant and I was finding out through my kid’s sport.

“It started appearing on Facebook … panic spread at that point, where everyone’s like ‘have you heard about the lead, have you heard about the lead?’ but no actual communication from council or environmental agencies or whoever.”

Blood testing for lead exposure

The EPA and the Tasmanian Health Department are jointly investigating the situation at Rocherlea.

Tasmanian EPA director Wes Ford said the concerns about lead at the Recycal facility warranted a two-fold response.

“Firstly, it triggered a public health response from the director of public health to go and start testing bakery products in the adjacent bakery,” Mr Ford said.

“Secondly, it triggered a response from WorkSafe to direct the staff to have blood tests taken.”

WorkSafe Tasmania said health monitoring results indicated that some workers had “elevated lead levels”.

“However, they are within acceptable ranges and the organisation has controls in place to mitigate the risks,” it said.

A Health Department spokesperson said all other test results from the general public were in the “normal range”.

Communication concerns

Recycal’s chief executive and managing director Douglas Rowe said communication was lacking from some government bodies.

He believed there was a “much better, professional, open and honest way to handle it”.

“I’m not sure that hysteria is the best way to handle situations like this,” Mr Rowe said.

“It’s been unfortunate because you have a mother rocking up to your site, knocking on the door, her daughter’s pregnant, [and she’s asking] ‘what am I going to do with all this lead’.

“But we’ve been able to tell them the truth, explain it in an open, honest, transparent way and that’s given them the comfort.”

Mr Ford disagreed that the agency’s communication was lacking.

“We strongly contest that our response was about hysteria,” he said.

“We are talking about a school, a mental health facility, and an aged care facility that are all in close proximity to this facility.”

‘Serious non-compliance by Recycal’

In 2019, the EPA assumed regulatory responsibility for the Rocherlea Recycal site due to “excessive and large-scale scrap metal stockpiling”.

The EPA claimed the stockpiling posed several environmental problems, including fire risks and waterway contamination.

The authority said it had taken multiple “compliance and enforcement actions in response to ongoing, serious non-compliance by Recycal”.

Those actions included notices and fines.

“One of our primary concerns remains contaminated water running off that site and passing down through the stormwater culvert, into the local farm dam,” Mr Ford said.

“Where, potentially, polluted water becomes part of the irrigation water, so that remains a primary concern for the management of that site.”

The EPA said its efforts to regulate the site had been affected by Recycal lodging appeals to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and to the Supreme Court.

Scrap metal shredder the cause

The ABC was given exclusive access to Rocherlea’s Recycal yard and viewed the “shredder floc” stockpiles responsible for the lead dust.

At the facility, scrap metal fed through a giant processor produced a by-product called shredder floc in the shredding process.

The floc contains materials such as metal, hydrocarbon, plastic and rubber.

But testing of Recycal’s floc stockpiles showed metals, including lead, were present in the dust.

This led the EPA to issue an Environment Protection Notice on Recycal in February, requiring it to stop the production and processing of shredder floc.

Mr Ford said samples were being collected from around the Recycal facility.

Preliminary results showed the shredder was responsible for the dust.

‘It’s just exhausting’

Mr Rowe said the whole situation had taken an emotional toll.

“It’s been really awkward, to tell the truth,” he said.

“The shredder is a $29 million investment and the bank continuously needs to be paid back each month.

“I think the staff are really worried, emotionally. It’s just exhausting.”

Todd Van Tienen has worked in maintenance and commissioning of the shredder at Recycal for the past seven years.

But becuase of the shredder shutdown, staff have been on lighter duties.

Mr Van Tienen said he was worried about losing his job if Recycal was unable to re-start full operations soon.

“It is very worrying. Everyone’s got a family. There are mouths to feed,” he said.

“And it’s a lot of employees to look for another job if something did ever happen.”

Hazardous waste disposal

Another condition of the EPA’s notice was the removal or covering of all shredder floc on the Rocherlea site.

Recycal has not complied with this condition.

“We’ve spoken to WorkSafe about that, and they didn’t feel that was something that was safe or suitable to do, to cover the floc,” Mr Rowe said.

“I think we all were of the same agreement that the best thing to do is to get it to a Class 2 landfill [site] and have it offsite to remove all those risks.”

But in a statement to the ABC, WorkSafe Tasmania said it had not had a conversation with Recycal about the covering of the shredder floc.

Level 2 waste includes low-level contaminated waste, while controlled waste is classified at level 3 and 4, depending on its composition.

Mr Rowe operated 13 sites across the country. He said environmental regulators on mainland Australia allowed floc to be disposed of in landfill sites accredited to accept level 2 waste.

He was frustrated this was not an acceptable solution in Tasmania.

“We’re not allowed to take any floc offsite and virtually any rubbish offsite, so that’s been quite challenging,” he said.

“But once the EPA gives us the go-ahead, we’ll remove that floc and then we’ll be in a position to have the shredder up and running again.”

Mr Ford said the shredder floc would need to be taken to the Copping C Cell, which accepts hazardous level 3 and 4 waste, as well as some level 2 waste.

“This is a highly contested space. There are a number of legal actions afoot at this point in time, and fundamentally if Recycal is going to operate in Tasmania, it has to operate lawfully.”

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