Baw Baw Shire Council has announced it will no longer accept commercial or industrial waste from the Latrobe Valley at its Trafalgar landfill, in an effort to maintain the expected lifespan of the facility.

Latrobe City's waste has been dumped at Trafalgar since February when the Morwell landfill stopped operation.

Construction will soon begin on a new municipal landfill for Latrobe at a site on Callignee South Road near Traralgon but it will not be operational until February next year.

However commercial and industrial waste services in Latrobe City will now have to cart their rubbish to another location from 30 May following the Baw Baw ban.

Latrobe's commercial waste will be hard pressed to find a home as Wellington Shire has revealed it is unlikely to accept any extra waste at the almost full Kilmany landfill near Rosedale.

Wellington Shire Council manager parks and environmental services, Tim Rowe said the existing landfill had two to three years left of space and council had applied for a works approval from the EPA to construct a new landfill cell on the Kilmany site.

``Our intention is we would not receive waste from the Valley because we have to protect our own community,'' Mr Rowe said.

Latrobe City's domestic kerbside waste however, will still be transported to Trafalgar until February next year.

Baw Baw Shire manager engineering assets and services David Sutcliffe said the volume of industrial and commercial waste being brought to the Trafalgar landfill was greater than expected.

Mr Sutcliffe said one Latrobe contractor dumped 1000 tonnes of waste at Trafalgar in the first week of the agreement between Baw Baw and Latrobe City.

``If we were to continue to take that (commercial and industrial) waste, both Latrobe and Baw Baw wouldn't have a landfill,'' Mr Sutcliffe said.

The decision to stop commercial and industrial waste going to Trafalgar was made after a planned review of waste volumes.

It is understood the Trafalgar landfill would be able to cope with current levels of domestic waste for two to three years.

Mr Sutcliffe maintains much of the industrial and commercial waste going into landfill could be recycled, but wasn't.

Gippsland Regional Waste Management Group (GRWMG) chairman Cr Graeme Middlemiss said Latrobe City had, more than a year ago, formulated a policy that commercial and industrial waste had to be sorted before it was put into landfill.

However, this was subject to the construction of a sorting facility to cater for that type of waste.

Cr Middlemiss said Sustainability Victoria had made $300,000 available for a sorting facility to be built, but no council or private organisation had taken on the project.

He said such a project was not yet financially viable and could impose a significant cost on ratepayers.

``It's one thing to salvage and recycle, it's another thing to make money from it,'' Cr Middlemiss said.

``It's cheaper to push a building over with a bulldozer than sort out the material before it goes into landfill.

``Until that changes it's hard to put that cost back onto ratepayers.

``The most likely outcome will be demolition and building contractors will pay the re-sorting costs,'' Cr Middlemiss said.

While sorting commercial and industrial waste might not yet be financially viable, it will be required to ensure the long life of landfills.

The Gippsland Regional Waste Management Plan which is yet to be released, is likely to recommend that after Trafalgar landfill reaches its capacity, the new Latrobe City landfill would hold both Latrobe and Baw Baw's waste.

Construction of the Latrobe landfill was delayed after appeals against the council planning permit and EPA works approval were heard by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last year.

Cr Middlemiss said the new landfill would have the capacity to hold both municipalities' domestic, commercial and industrial waste.

The Express understands the predicted life of the new landfill is around 15 years, but Cr Middlemiss said this would depend on the advent of new waste technologies, such as a commercial waste sorting facility.

Combining the waste mass of both Baw Baw and Latrobe would allow for new technologies to be used but the GRWMG and waste businesses now face the task of weighing up the life of a landfill with the cost of sorting the waste.

Cr Middlemiss said the current dilemma for waste companies was a ``temporary issue''. He plans to chair a meeting with Latrobe, Baw Baw and Wellington councils to resolve the waste dilemma.

He said the volume of waste dumped at the Trafalgar landfill over the past couple of weeks was out of the ordinary because of recent demolition works in the Valley.

Latrobe City chief executive officer, Paul Buckley said construction of the new Callignee South Road landfill would begin in four to six weeks.

He said he was confident it would be fully operational by the end of February 2009.

Mr Buckley said Latrobe ratepayers would not be affected by Baw Baw's decision and all domestic waste and transfer station waste would continue to go to Trafalgar.

He said council was happy to talk with waste contractors about potential options for storing their waste.