EPA Victoria has fined a Melton-based company A$10,176 after inspectors caught piles of mixed construction-and-demolition (C&D) waste being dumped and burned on site. The penalty sits inside a wider EPA inspection blitz that has now hit organisations across Ararat and metropolitan Melbourne with fines exceeding $10,000 each.

What did EPA actually find at the Melton site?

EPA officers responded to public reports of trucks arriving, unloading, and setting the waste alight. By the time inspectors reached the site, the pile contained six distinct material streams that should never have been mixed, let alone burned:

• Metal
• Timber
• Glass
• Plastic
• Plasterboard
• Wire

Each stream carries a separate recovery pathway — scrap merchants, timber recyclers, glass processors, plasterboard reprocessors. Burning them together destroyed six recycling revenue streams in one fire and left ash EPA treats as contaminated waste.

How wide is the blitz?

The Melton penalty is not an isolated ticket. Companies in Ararat and across Melbourne have also received fines above $10,000 in the same crackdown, EPA said. The waste streams triggering penalties elsewhere ran from plastic and oil to metal, timber, discarded tyres and demolition debris. The pattern tells operators what the regulator now treats as a priority: open burning of mixed loads on unlicensed land.

Why is EPA leaning in now?

Public tip-offs did the heavy lifting. EPA operations executive director Rachel Gualano said unannounced inspections and reports from locals caught offenders while the waste still smouldered — and the regulator is using that evidence to build infringement files fast.

The agency's message is economic as much as environmental. Gualano framed the practice as a false saving that costs the community twice.

"Burning waste that should be recycled or sent to an EPA licensed landfill only pollutes the air with smoke, the land with chemical residue, and nearby waterways with tainted runoff," she said.

What changes for operators from here?

Two practical shifts are now in motion:

• The fine carries real weight. A$10,176 typically exceeds the cost of disposing a mixed C&D load through a licensed transfer station, breaking the arithmetic that pushed some operators toward torching piles instead of tipping them.
• Cleanup now lands on the offender. EPA can attach a clean-up order to the penalty, meaning the operator pays for site remediation on top of the fine.

Gualano made the calculus explicit: "While those responsible might think they saved the cost of proper disposal, anyone with a phone can report it as pollution, leaving the culprit open to a fine or prosecution, plus an order to clean it up at their own expense."

What's the next milestone to watch?

EPA's 24-hour pollution hotline (1300 372 842) and the epa.vic.gov.au reporting portal remain the regulator's first move — the same channels that triggered the Melton inspection. Every additional tip-off that lands while waste still smoulders now carries a near-certain penalty; the test for operators in Ararat and greater Melbourne is whether the blitz escalates from infringement notices to prosecution referrals.