By Sahar Foladi
A declutter-your-home initiative saw a huge turnout at Greaves Reserve in Dandenong on Saturday 25 February.
City of Greater Dandenong was providing an extra opportunity for residents to recycle their unwanted items on top of their one free hard waste collection each year.
Deputy mayor Lana Formoso said that 1143 vehicles came to drop off their items and 60 tonnes of items were deposited.
Residents were able to drop off unwanted electronic and household goods, including televisions, computers, furniture and bicycle.
Instead of going to the landfill, items were being donated to charity or diverted to recycling Cr Formoso said.
Bakhtar Community Organisation was at the event to collect the reusable donated items.
“The event was great. Our team was able to collect some reusable items such as bikes, electronics, beds, chairs, cupboards, kid’s toys, washing machines, fridges and general usable items,” CEO Bassir Qadiri said.
Loaded in the truck, the reusable items were donated the following day on Sunday with almost 100 newly arrived families to be supported in the upcoming weeks.
The donated items were being stored in Bakhtar’s Noble Park warehouse, which has being made more secure after repeated burglaries.
“Bollards are installed, so the entrance can only be accessed through a locked bollard. We have also installed a CCTV camera at the premises that operates on solar power,” Mr Qadiri said.
Since then, burglars made an effort to break in but were unsuccessful.
“The locks are damaged. We believe they tried to unlock the bollards but they couldn’t. The council will replace them this week.”
Greater Dandenong residents will gear up for a similar event called ‘Homecycle’ between 7 to 18 March from the comfort of their home via one-off kerbside collection.
Residents will be able to recycle unwanted household items including, clothes, line, homewares, toys, games, sports equipment and minor electrical items.
Items can be added to the kerbside yellow lid bin and the items will be passed onto charities.
