Illegal Dumping

Just down the bottom of my road near the junction with the Pacific Highway, there is a flat open area owned by the local Council, which is used as a parking area by car poolers, a bus stop by the local school bus service, and a road base storage area by the local Council for access by road maintenance crews. Oh, and its a hugely popular location for illegal dumping.

On the evening of 13 January, some lazy individual dumped a truck full of scrap metal at the site (see photo 1). Several weeks later, two Council trucks turned up with a front end loader and three Council staff and several hours were spent unloading the front end loader from one of the trucks, loading the dumped scrap metal onto one of the trucks, grading the illegal dump area of the site, and putting the loader back onto the 2nd truck.


photo 1

My guess is that the whole exercise including taking the scrap metal to the local tip probably cost Council about $1,200.

Then, on or about 31 March, another illegal dumper pulled up in an almost identical spot and discharged a heap of building refuse (see photo 2). It'll probably be a few weeks before Council cleans up the latest mess, but I did have a quiet, if slightly bitter guffaw at the warning sign Council posted in front of the latest illegal dump, which will be fooling neither residents nor illegal dumpers when it says "AREA UNDER SURVEILLANCE".


photo 2

I've suggested to the local Mayor that Council could save themselves a heap of grief, effort and cash by contacting Spectur for a surveillance and security solution at this illegal dump site, but I won't be holding my breath. Something is more likely to eventuate if it goes onto the outbound sales pitch list of our NSW sales office.

On the form of past years, there will be at least 3 or 4 more illegal dumping incidents at the above site through calendar year 2021. Compared to the clean up cost for 5 or 6 illegal dumping incidents at this site each year, the price of a well placed HD5 camera seems cheap by any measure.

zeno9