By Bonny Burrows
The amount of rubbish dumped across Cardinia Shire has “significantly” increased over the past five years, and council has struggled to keep up with demand for its removal.
Pakenham Upper resident Di Kidgell can attest to this.
Ms Kidgell told the Gazette rubbish dumping was becoming “a big problem” in rural areas, particularly in Pakenham Upper.
“People seem to be dumping hard rubbish and bin collection rubbish a lot more lately. Usually it is much worse just after a hard rubbish collection,” Ms Kidgell said.
Fed up with the dumping of dirty nappies, old furniture and household waste along Old Gembrook and Huxtable roads, Ms Kidgell contacted Cardinia Shire council five times over five weeks, asking for the removal of the rubbish.
During the time of waiting for its removal, the rubbish got worse, Ms Kidgell said, and became more spread out as animals dug around in the waste.
She said the wait wasn’t good enough and wasn’t until the Gazette stepped in and questioned the council that the waste was cleared.
Cardinia Shire Council’s co-ordinator of waste management services, Misty Johannsen, said the council had identified dumped rubbish as a shire-wide issue in its Draft Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy.
“The incidence of dumped rubbish has increased significantly over the past five years as well as the costs,” Ms Johannsen said.
To address this, she said council was trialling a contracted service, which began early June 2017, and was expected to achieve faster waste collection times.
Responsive collection was also priority in tackling the issue, she said, as “unfortunately waste can and does attract further incidents of dumped waste”.
Ms Johannsen encouraged residents to report the dumping of waste to the council.
“We encourage residents to report to us with accurate details to allow prompt collection, as well as provide any details of witnessed dumping for investigation. Council investigates all evidence and witness statements provided and take enforcement action where possible.
While Cardinia Shire Council is responsible for collections requiring specialist equipment some areas are not council responsibility, including private or commercial land and vacant blocks.
The responsibility for dumped rubbish along major roads sites lies with VicRoads.
