Rural residents in Clyde North say they are “sick” of years of illegal rubbish dumping on local dirt roads, claiming the problem has escalated to an almost daily occurrence as nearby housing estates expand.
City of Casey Mayor Cr Stefan Koomen said over the past five years, the litter pick and dumped rubbish collection contract had cost Council almost $1.4 million, not including disposal costs.
Clyde North local Amanda Ord said the rubbish dumping in the general area of Pattersons Rd, Pound Rd, and McCormack Rd had been happening “consistently for years”, especially since the new Clyde estates had been built closer to the area.
Pound Road and McCormack Road remain unsealed, as much of the area is still rural. The eastern end of Pattersons Road, near its intersection with Pound Road, is also unsealed, with a new housing estate proposed nearby.
“People just seem to think that it’s perfectly fine for them to come and dump their excess rubbish down our road on our nature strips,” Amanda said.
“There’s been full-blown household items.
“People bring, like, actual household rubbish, like probably about a month and a half ago, somebody obviously threw their rubbish out the car window as I was driving down, and it had all split open on my neighbour’s lawn, like front nature strip, and it was full of baby nappies, like just absolutely disgusting.”
Amanda said the neighbourhood gets hold of the Council every time the dumping happens, by using the Snap Send Solve, but the Council usually comes weeks after, and the rubbish could be sitting there for well over a month.
Neighbours tend to clean up the rubbish on their own, Amanda shared.
“We’ve cleaned up the rubbish before because it’s literally dumped like at the edge of our driveway as we drive out of that driveway,” she said.
“The Council did have cameras up at that intersection for a while, and it did seem to slow down the amount of dumping, but since the estates have been doing roadworks and stuff there, the cameras have been taken down, and now it’s literally daily.
“We drive down our road, and there’s something new, like it’s even builders’ rubbish.”
Amanda recalled that during days exceeding 40 degrees, someone brought a car up there and burned it, which blew her mind.
Earlier in the month, Minister for Environment Steve Dimopoulos announced financial support of $8.5 million in the Illegal Dumping Clean-up Rebate Program for councils and public land managers.
The program is set to cover 50 per cent of clean-up costs when all avenues to trace the perpetrator and recover costs have been exhausted or are not feasible.
“Too often councils and public land managers are left with a costly mess to clean up from the actions of wrong-doers – this rebate scheme provides support to help cover these costs and keep our suburbs and towns clean,” Mr Dimopoulos said during the announcement.
A $13 million Illegal Dumping Taskforce is also part of the announcement, led by the EPA with the Conservation Regulator to undertake enforcement activities using expanded intelligence and monitoring to detect and respond to waste crimes in key locations.
It will ramp up surveillance, enforcement and clean-up efforts across Victoria.
Casey Mayor Cr Koomen said Council is aware of recurring illegal dumping of rubbish in that Clyde North area and has received a number of reports from residents via Snap Send Solve.
“Council employs a range of measures at different times to deter illegal dumping, including education, Waste Information Gathering Notices and surveillance cameras,” he said.
“Where identification is found within the dumped rubbish, we have taken enforcement action and issued infringement notices.
“Illegally dumped rubbish is a significant issue for many Victorian Councils, adding to increased costs which in turn impacts our ratepayers by diverting resources from other community needs.
“We welcome the new State Government clean-up rebate announced this week to help ease some of the burden on Casey ratepayers.”
City of Greater Dandenong Mayor Sophie Tan told Star Journal two weeks ago that last year alone, their staff cleaned up 900 tonnes of illegal waste at a cost to local ratepayers of more than $1.6 million.
