The Sydney company contracted to operate the ACT government's Hume recycling centre is desperate to gain access to the site in the next 24 to 48 hours to assess the full extent of the damage and determine its next steps.
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The Materials Recovery Facility at Hume, which receives all the comingled, recyclable waste from Canberra's yellow-topped bins, was gutted in a major fire on Monday night.
Canberra residents have been told to put out their recycling bins as usual this week, but with the Hume site now closed indefinitely, the trucks that collect the waste will be dropping it instead at the Mugga lane tip.
How long this arrangement will continue and what happens next to the ever-growing pile of plastics, cardboard and glass at the Mugga tip are questions the head of Re.group's recycle operation Chris Rosser says he can't answer until his crews can check how badly the heavy plant equipment was damaged and what can be salvaged.
Dumping at Mugga is only a short-term solution for the recyclable material building, and Re.group is figuring out where it could be sent, given that most recycling facilities in NSW are at capacity. Storage appears to be the most likely outcome.
"We have other facilities in NSW [which can accept the waste]," Mr Rosser said.
"We have got our Enfield [Sydney] site and we are also working with other off-takers to explore options for the material.
"We're very much in the early stages because the site is under the control of emergency services, which is normal in these situations.
"And therefore we won't get a chance to understand what equipment is still useable in the plant and what's not."
He said that the damage from what could be seen outside the building on Tuesday "looks quite significant".
City Services Minister Chris Steel was a little more forthright in his assessment and expects the facility to be a write-off. Firefighters remain concerned about potential structural damage generated by the enormous heat, sufficient to buckle and bend steel.
"There are some areas of the plant which look to be intact but we won't know until we can actually get access to those areas," Mr Rosser said.
He said that Re.group's Enfield site would not be able to accept all the Canberra-generated material.
"We have other facilities around the country but they are not ideally situated," he said.
Re.group is certain to incur significant operational costs in the weeks ahead as it struggles to manage the sheer volume of material and transport it interstate.
While Canberra generates less than 1000 tonnes of comingled material a week, Re.group also accepted recycled material at Hume from six other nearby NSW regional councils, including the Snowy Monaro and Goulburn-Mulwaree, which pushed the annual processing at the plant to around 58,000 tonnes a year.
"All we are looking to do at this stage is identify potential solutions," Mr Rosser said.
"Until we've got clarity on what damage has occurred at the site, we're still in the investigation stage."
About 150 tonnes of loose and baled material is being progressively extracted from the gutted Hume site by heavy machinery, broken apart and thoroughly doused with water and a wetting agent to ensure there is no chance of reignition.
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This process is expected to take several days and generate some residual smoke. All the burnt material will go to landfill.
Once the site is cleared and the fire fully extinguished, it will be handed back to Re.group.
A scoping study for a new recycling plant has been lodged by Transport Canberra and City Services. The study describes a $21 million construction project jointly funded by the ACT and the Commonwealth.
This had been planned for opening in late 2024 but City Services Minister Chris Steel has now flagged this project would be fast-tracked, given the extent of the fire damage to the Hume facility and the need to replace it.
This new project is intended to increase the total annual processing capability from about 60,000 tonnes to 115,000 tonnes, a study into the project says.
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