Call to scrap hard waste strip dump

– Tania Martin
A MONBULK man is calling for the Shire of Yarra Ranges to reassess its hard waste collection after a huge pile of rubbish was left on Emerald-Monbulk Road for several months.
Gerrard O’Connor says the council needs to do something to stop it from happening again.
For several months Monbulk residents have waited for the pile of rubbish to be removed.
But the council was unaware of the problem until two weeks ago when The Mail reported on the issue.
The Mail reported in its story titled Dumping slammed on Tuesday, 17 July, that councillor Graham Warren had labelled the rubbish as an absolute disgrace.
But following the report, nearby residents rushed to tell The Mail the full story behind the massive pile of rubbish.
Mr O’Connor, who lives opposite to where the pile was dumped, said Emerald-Monbulk Road has been used as a drop off point for hard waste collections for many years.
He said nearby residents usually drop off their hard rubbish a couple of weeks before the collection and it’s picked up by the shire’s sub-contractor.
However, this year was different and the hard waste on Emerald-Monbulk Road wasn’t picked up.
Shire manager of community relations James Martin said the council provides roadside collections to all local streets in the area and that there was no need for residents to place rubbish on the side of Emerald-Monbulk Road.
Mr O’Connor said after the hard waste collection time past and the rubbish remained he contacted the council to fix the problem but nothing happened.
“We were told a truck would come and pick it up,” he said.
But Mr O’Connor said the rubbish was never removed and in late June he was told that the rubbish was VicRoads responsibility and that the shire had contacted it to take the items away.
Since then Mr Martin said the council had contacted VicRoads several times and was waiting for it to clean up the mess.
On Friday afternoon Mr O’Connor said the rubbish pile was finally clean up, but has now called for the council to make the area a designated pick up point for hard waste.
He has written to the council calling for the issues to be assessed.