Since moving to Brisbane 11 years ago I’ve lived in Brisbane, Logan and Moreton Bay council areas, and over those years I’ve read too many stories about illegal dumping at charity bins, but court cases don’t seem to happen often. A man was fined $1,884 in October 2015 after he left a dining setting outside the Lifeline bins at Kianawah Rd, Wynnum West. No photo of that, but the mattress and kid stuff this year, photographed for the Courier article, looks suspiciously like what was at our Endeavour bin.
A few weeks ago Bethania had a roadside rubbish collection, which similarly happens all over Brisbane and Logan council areas every year. Logan Council has a website page which gives the annual collection dates, and lists “hard waste” similar to what was by the Endeavour bins: furniture, wood products, carpet and lino, stoves, dishwashers and washing machines and small amounts of building materials like rocks and tiles but not loose dirt. Every decent resident left tidy piles where they should, and all their stuff was picked up by the rubbish trucks. Why didn’t those who dumped at the Endeavour charity bins put their rubbish on the roadside when they could have?
This problem has been happening all over Australia, and, while most of you might know a little bit about it, it’s gotten worse. The Moreton Bay Council had cut the roadside collection off years ago, and was asked back in 2012 to reinstate it – which they didn’t; residents need to become aware of why they turfed it. The ACT government wanted to remove donation bins when their two-year lease expired in June this year, but I can’t find anything about that after June; perhaps they didn’t do it. WA Government gave a donation to charities which have received some extremely offensive “donations” at their bins and have to get rid of them. NSW Lifeline volunteers worked every Monday to clean up the rubbish left at their charity bins.
Illegal dumping in Queensland doubled in the past financial year, between 2015-2016. The Queensland government this year introduced apilot program which would, if it worked, tackle illegal dumping at charity bins. Have a look at this website: it says “Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles today (May 1) released the ‘Does your donation count or cost? Understanding donations and dumping behaviours and their impacts for Queensland Charities’ report, produced by UnitingCare Community in partnership with Queensland member charities of the National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations Inc (NACRO).” I can’t find anything about illegal dumping in the Cabinet documents page, but maybe it’s there with another name. Wherever it is, it must be known about by idiotic dumpers. And the Queensland government must make it available to all residents.
What will be our stance? What will be the illegal dumper’s stance? Do we simply just file this away and leave it up to the government? Will they find a decent end step for this or will it continue to get worse than it has? Remember, the illegal dumping doubled in the past financial year. It never should have.
This morning I walked out past the Endeavour bins, and the dumping had been cleaned up. Well done Endeavour men, but this is not their every-day job.
DON'T dump rubbish: get rid of it yourself!
http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2016/5/1/new-queensland-pilot-program-to-tackle-illegal-dumping-at-charity-bins
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