A rubbish dumper has been fined $3509 plus $420 costs for leaving “renovation materials” on a roadside at Tootgarook.
Mornington Peninsula Shire says the fine levied by Dromana Court backs its “zero-tolerance approach” to illegal rubbish dumping.
On 10 January, a peninsula resident was found guilty of aggravated littering, sentenced with conviction, fined $3509 and ordered to pay council’s $420 clean-up costs.
The shire says the offender was “caught in the act unloading renovation materials from a trailer at a Tootgarook roadside”.
Illegal dumping can incur penalties of up to $9500.
“Council spends more than $700,000 at a cost to ratepayers a year cleaning up the mess left behind by illegally dumped waste and the shire has collected 1466 cases of illegal dumping in the past six months,” the mayor Cr David Gill said.
“Most of this dumped waste could have been disposed of for free at the shire’s resource recovery centres in Tyabb, Mornington and Rye.”
Cr Gill said dumped waste “poses a serious threat to our wildlife and can lead to contamination of land, waterways and groundwater”.
“It’s not hard to do the right thing with a long list of items able to be disposed of for little or no cost at our resource recovery centres or use your rates vouchers to book a kerbside collection,” he said.
Free items that can be dropped off at the centres include: household recyclables; steel goods (excluding fridges & air conditioners); bikes; computers; televisions; paint (up to 100 litres); gas cylinders (up to nine kilograms); motor oil (up to 20 litres); fluorescent globes and tubes and batteries.
A full list of disposable items is at mornpen.vic.gov.au/wasteguide
Peninsula households can also book a kerbside waste collection service by calling 5950 1406.
Illegal rubbish dumpers can be reported at mornpen.vic.gov.au/dobinadumper or by calling 1300 850 600 or 5950 1000
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 12 February 2019
