About 36 tonnes of Canberra's reusable waste is being sent to Western Sydney every day, after a fire destroyed most of the ACT's recycling facility last week.
Eighteen fire crews battled the blaze, which broke out at the facility in the industrial suburb of Hume on Boxing Day.
The Emergency Services Agency (ESA) said the fire had been burning through the warehouse where recyclable waste collected from households was stored.
It continued for days, smouldering amid about 150 tonnes of densely packed material.
City Services Minister Chris Steel described the event as a "significant setback for recycling in the ACT".
"At this stage it appears that this facility is a write-off," he said last week.
Some recyclable material may go to landfill: Steel
The ACT government said today it had arranged to send the capital's recyclable waste interstate, as a clean-up operation continued at the Hume facility.
Investigations into the cause of the fire are ongoing.
"We're expecting a report soon," Mr Steel said.
"It is expected that it may not be possible to determine the exact cause of the fire.
"The ACT government's focus is on managing the ACT's recycling."
Mr Steel said that, as of Wednesday, about 1,270 tonnes of recyclable material was stored at the Mugga Lane waste centre.
"We are doing everything we can to make sure that that material goes on to be recycled," he said.
"Transportation of that material has begun to recycling facilities in Western Sydney; around 36 tonnes a day is being sent to a facility in Enfield."
The ACT recycling facility usually processed about 200 tonnes of material a day.
Mr Steel said the government was working to use more trucks to transport reusable material to other centres besides Enfield.
He urged Canberrans to continue to recycle but conceded that some of their waste might not be processed.
"Every effort is being made to sake sure that material goes on to be recycled," he said.
"But with so much material being stored at the Mugga Lane resource management centre, without protection from the elements, it is possible that some of that material, like paper and cardboard, could become degraded, and that may mean that we may need to landfill some of that material in the future."
He admitted the process was "inefficient".
"Unfortunately, transportation will mean extra transport emissions, and it's an incredibly inefficient process, because that material is not processed and baled in the ACT," he said.
"It has to be transported in its loose, mixed recyclable form … which is not ideal."
High price of temporary arrangements
Mr Steel said the new arrangements cost at least $75 per tonne transported to Sydney.
"This will have a substantial additional cost for the ACT, both [to transport] the recyclable material but also in the extra gate fees that recycling facilities elsewhere will charge the ACT government and regional councils to take on that additional waste," he said.
He expected the ACT Insurance Authority to offset some of that cost.
"This is a significant business disruption and that will cause extra costs, and so we're working with them to assess the claim and what contribution that they might be able to make."
The government was also assessing the burnt-out facility to see whether if it could be used temporarily as a transfer station, Mr Steel said.
"But there's a bit of work to do to make sure it's safe," he said.
The ACT government announced last year it would build a new recycling facility in partnership with the federal government.
It was scheduled to be operational by the end of 2024, but Mr Steel said the government was expediting the project.
"We'll look at what we can do through the procurement, planning, design and construction of that project to fast-tack that facility and make sure that we can handle the ACT's recycling material over the long term," he said.
