By KATH GANNAWAY
“STOP dumping! Pigs” summed up the response of Seville East residents to a dumping spree on their doorstep.
The message was scrawled on a piece of furniture dumped along with truckloads of rubbish on the corner of Warburton Highway and the Old Warburton Road over the past month.
Angry residents contacted Yarra Ranges Council as the heap grew from an abandoned television left on the prominent highway site on around the 20 February to a dump-fest of household rubbish, paperwork, carpet, car parts, toys, furniture, televisions and more – a lot of it recyclable.
Barbara Pownall said the dumping started within a day or so of the council’s hard-rubbish collection in the Seville East estate.
“The day after someone put a TV up there on the highway and something else was there the following day. It just escalated from there and every time I went past, it was bigger and bigger,” she said, adding it was not Seville East residents, but people from outside the area taking advantage of the illegal dump to get rid of their rubbish.
“This is just lazy ferals who either can’t afford to , or choose not to dispose of their own rubbish at the tip,” she said.
“I find it deplorable that people would be so thoughtless and careless about what they are doing,” Mrs Pownall said.
She said a number of residents had taken number plate details and passed them on to Yarra Ranges Council.
Although a number of people responding to the story on the Mail’s Facebook page have flagged high tip fees as the cause of increased dumping around the shire, residents Heidi Savans and Robyn Hall said it was no excuse.
“You can’t blame tip fees on something like this. It’s just lazy and if everyone did this, all over the Yarra Valley would look like this,” he said.
“I don’t go around doing this, and I don’t like our rates going up because of this sort of thing either,” she said.
Ms Hall said it was revolting.
“It’s disgusting that someone would do this,” she said.
“We live in this beautiful part of the world, looking out over vineyards and hills and then you get this. It’s just wrong.”
Yarra Ranges Council’s Litter Investigation Officer went out to the site on 18 March and found evidence that has assisted in identifying people allegedly involved in the dumping.
Andrew Paxton, YRC manager Planning, Building and Health, said infringements would be issued once they had confirmed the offenders.
“The site is located on a VicRoads road. VicRoads have confirmed they will be removing the rubbish today,” Mr Paxton said.
Residents contacted by the Mail on Monday said the site remained a dump, but had been roped off with ‘No Dumping’ tape which it appeared had stemmed the flow of rubbish.
VicRoads was unable to provide a response to the Mail’s questions on when the site would be cleared, and how much it would cost, before our deadline.
