Alice Coster: The leafy streets of Melbourne have been converted into hard rubbish slums

Melbourne has seriously lost the hard rubbish plot — and I blame the good people of Brighton.

Melbourne has seriously lost the hard-rubbish plot.

It was the skanky old toilet brush (with holder) thoughtfully placed beside a yellowing mattress on the nature strip that was the final straw.

Melbourne has seriously lost the hard-rubbish plot.

Faulty toaster anyone? Some now rotten kitchen cabinetry? How about some soiled old linen?

A broken clothes horse, wire sprung lamps and multiple mattresses, neatly propped up next to a tree, is the new nature strip vista.

The leafy streets of Elwood have turned more slums of Calcutta, with hard rubbish groaning in the winter wind down the footpaths.

Melbourne used to have an unwritten and successful hard rubbish code. Picture: John Appleyard

As a self-confessed junkie — hard rubbish, not the William S. Burroughs type — I find this most dismaying.

Until recently there has always been a certain unsaid etiquette as to what should and definitely should not be tossed to the kerb.

Good practice sees household items that have been practical, treasured and in good working nick left on the nature strip (preferably with a note saying free, for scavengers like myself).

There follows a delightful social exchange between dumper and junkie alike.

Only this week I was marvelling with utmost satisfaction at how little time it took (just 17 minutes) for rummagers to seize upon what was once a beloved old wooden table which had served us well.

Everyday seems to be hard rubbish day in Brighton. Picture: Paul Loughnan

My trash was now someone else’s treasure.

But there must be limits. And I’m blaming the people of Briiiiiighton for the household pile-ups.

I was living there some years back when the hard rubbish turf-and-surf really took off.

We used to count down the months to hard-rubbish day.

We religiously gathered the crap that had accumulated all over the house and put it in a neat pile on the nature strip so the council could haul it away the following morning.

But not in Brighton where every day is hard rubbish-day, except there is no council truck on the way to collect it.

No wonder crime is at an all time high in the ‘hood, with locals like the Juddsters quaking in their designer puffer jackets.

The robbers start on the nature strips and then slowly make their way inside.

Entitled owners are chucking out everything from their kitchen sink and lavatories, right down to the aforementioned toilet brush.

It’s almost as if they think their proverbial doesn’t stink!