By CASEY NEILL
RUBBISH is littering central Dandenong streets – and its residents are responsible.
Amelia Poole travels streets between Cleeland and Stud roads on her five-minute drive to work.
“I can see up to five or six houses on the one block with hard waste out the front,” she said.
“The state of some of these streets is absolutely disgusting at the moment.
“It just gets strewn everywhere.
“It’s really quite frustrating as a person who’s a bit of an environmentalist. I don’t like waste going into the wrong channels.”
Ms Poole said the piles included household waste plus televisions, couches, chairs, printers, mattresses and carpets.
One morning she even saw a pile of old guttering on the side of the road – in front of the house it had obviously come from.
“No-one’s taking it away,” she said.
“Not the council, not the people that are living there.
“It’s kind of no-one’s problem.
“It’s a bit unfair for people who are doing the right thing.”
Ms Poole said it was hard to prove who had dumped the waste.
“But some of it’s pretty obviously dumped by the people who live there,” she said.
She said people could donate useful items to opportunity shops or dispose of rubbish through the City of Greater Dandenong’s hard waste collection.
Residents can call and lock in a time for their waste to be picked up.
“You don’t have to wait for a yearly collection,” Ms Poole said.
“I think it’s good for a suburb like Dandenong. There are a lot of people on leases, it’s more transient.
“I think maybe people in Dandenong aren’t informed of that. There are a lot of people who can’t speak or read English, or have just moved into the area.
“I think there are some people who just don’t care, knowing no-one can prove they put it there.”
Ms Poole has reported waste piles to council in recent months, and said the council had removed them and placed warning stickers there.
“The same block of flats had more stuff after that,” she said.
“They’re obviously not getting the message.
“Maybe there does need to be more education provided.”
She said the Revitalising Central Dandenong project was improving the area, but this issue was holding it back.
“Obviously something’s got to change,” she said.
Councillor Matthew Kirwan said residents in central Dandenong regularly contacted him about the issue.
“They want to live in streets that are neat and tidy – that is not too much to ask,” he said.
“The targeted education program that the council is currently piloting is welcome progress, but greater resourcing is needed by council in hot spot areas to catch and penalise offenders.”
Cr Kirwan said the council encouraged residents to report hard rubbish dumping, but there was so much dumping in hot spot areas that there needed to be greater council monitoring.
“We can’t and should not rely on residents like Amelia to investigate large numbers of streets and report a large number of incidents for us,” he said.
