From Thrift Park, Mentone to Southland, Cheltenham Carmel Chamier has become a senior street cleaner

CLEANING the streets of Mentone and Cheltenham of abandoned trolleys has become a mega mission for civic minded senior Carmel Chamier.

Mentone's Carmel Chamier has been campaigning about abandoned trolleys around Southland Shopping Centre where trolley dumping is rife. Picture: David Crosling

CLEANING the streets of abandoned trolleys has become a mega mission for civic minded senior Carmel Chamier.

For months the 64-year-old has used her daily walk to her favourite cafe at Thrift Park Shopping Centre, Mentone to collect shopping trolleys that have been strewn on the streets and return them to Woollies.

Now she has turned her attention to the surrounds of Southland Shopping Centre where dumped trolleys have become the scourge of roads, nature strips and footpaths.

“Some people feel it’s a god given right to take supermarket trolleys out of shopping centres,” Ms Chamier said.

“If customers would do the right thing and return their trolleys to the supermarket, it would be better for everyone concerned.”

In January we reported on James Ackroyd, who lives in Wilson Street, near Westfield Southland complex said he was sick and tired of trolleys sprawled across his neighbourhood.

Mr Ackroyd said locks on trolleys could easily be broken or vandalised, and some shoppers were not concerned with losing their gold coin deposit.

He suggested barriers be erected to prevent trolleys from leaving the Southland perimeter, and believed now was the ideal time as Westfield introduced a new parking system.

“There are lots of supermarkets in there, it’s probably something Westfield needs to take responsibility for, as well as the individual operators. We might have a chance to get it solved once and for all.”

Mr Ackroyd said there were multiple trolleys in the streets on any given day and it got worse in the lead up to Christmas.

Kingston Council city assets and environment general manager Daniel Freer said the majority of phone calls to council about trolleys come from streets surrounding Westfield Southland.

The council encourages residents to report empty dumped trolleys directly to supermarket chains or Trolley Tracker and the council only collects trolleys that are full of rubbish.

RACV statistics released earlier this year showed more than $300,000 in car damage claims were caused by wayward shopping trolleys in the 2015-2016 financial year.

Report abandoned trolleys on 1800 641 497 or trolleytracker.com.au