Greater Dandenong Council struggles with growing scourge of street dumping
Greater Dandenong Council spends about $450,000 a year to collect and dispose of illegally dumped rubbish and last year picked up 900 tonnes of it from roadsides and reserves.
South East
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Greater Dandenong Council is fighting a losing battle against the scourge of illegal dumping.
The council gets about 350 reports a month of rubbish strewn on streets and reserves.
Engineering services director Julie Reid said despite different trials and initiatives, they’ve had “limited success” in reducing the problem.
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Ms Reid said the council investigated more than 3800 complaints about illegal dumps in the 2017-18 financial year and workers cleaned up about 900 tonnes of rubbish from roads and open spaces in the same period.
“Council spends approximately $450,000 per annum to collect and dispose of illegally dumped rubbish on public land,” she said.
Ms Reid said the most commonly dumped items included televisions and other electronic waste, furniture and mattresses, and industrial and construction waste.
She said the council’s initiatives to tackle the problem included investigating and taping and tagging dumped rubbish to highlight it had been illegally disposed of. Ms Reid said the council had also introduced a property liaison officer to deal with real estate agents, body corporates and other tenanted property agents.
“Part of this role will be educating the public about dumped rubbish and booking of hard waste collections,” she said.
Greater Dandenong Environment Group president Ian Kitchen said he was stunned by the contempt displayed by the dumpers for the natural environment. “It’s evolved over millions of years and they have no respect for it,” he said.
Mr Kitchen said the council should consider harsher fines.
Council can issue on-the-spot fines starting at $322 for those caught illegally dumping rubbish.
Officers may also instigate legal action, which could result in much higher fines imposed by the court.
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