THE CURSE OF THE COUNCIL CLEAN UP
I loathe Council Clean Up days.
I’m the odd one out because all my neighbours seem to revel in the bi-annual festival of junk in the same way art lovers look forward to the Venice Biennale. They stand on the side of the road and regard old mattresses and barbeques as if they were admiring a Henry Moore sculpture.
What a wasteful bunch of tossers we are. And if Council Clean Up is lauded as a fabulous way to stop dumping stuff in nearby bushland? That makes us even worse.
Twice a year the joint looks like a war zone as the piles of unwanted stuff grow to mountainous proportions. And looking at the perfectly good things being thrown out – useable kids toys, clothes, and all manner of furniture – just makes me angry.
This was the scene in the street next to mine recently… (and the junk aficionado is not my husband, BTW.)
Twenty-four hours later, after a torrential downpour, everything that may have been useful to someone was sodden and ruined.
The Council truck came by, threw everything into the crusher and that was that. Off to landfill.
What a criminal waste of resources. We should instead see it as a great resource of waste.
They do it differently in other parts of the world – like in Germany where you can take your stuff to a waste management depot or ring someone to come and get it and it’s then arranged, under cover. People can come and browse and take what they want. Every student share house is furnished with second-hand furniture.
In the UK, the Furniture Re-use Network provides cheap used goods to some 750,000 low-income households; employs 3000 staff and 10,000 volunteers and diverts 90,000 tonnes of waste from landfill. It’s a business worth more than $100 million every year.
What do we have in Australia?
A rag-tag collection of blokes with utes picking through the refuse at dawn, often smashing stuff that could be used as they collect valuable metal odds and ends. And why not? Since it’s all going to end up as toxic mulch anyway.
Yep, it’s all soon out of sight and out of mind when you come home from work and the nature strip’s clean again, apart from the odd flat screen TV someone sneaked into the pile (against the rules) that then sits there for weeks more.
Hooray! Time to buy new stuff, preferably online* so it arrives just as magically as it was taken away.
My Dad cries when he sees what’s chucked out for Council Clean Up.
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42 Responses to this article
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HelenR August 3, 2012
I grew up in Sydney where Council Clean Ups were the norm. But then I moved to Canberra and there’s no such thing here. Instead, there are trashpacks, there is the secondhand place at the tip that will take anything they think is still usable and then there is the worldwide Freecycle network (google it to see how this works if you haven’t heard about it) – all of which allows up to get rid of unwanted stuff but in a much neater way. I used to like Council Clean Ups but now I’ve found better alternatives.
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Bananarama August 3, 2012
I am sad that they have gotten rid of our hard rubbish day twice per year. I loved the whole scavenge and hunt for furniture, and I loved that when I put out furniture, someone always took it for themselves before the truck cruncher came. I liked the idea of my old stuff having a new life in someone else’s house.
Now, we have to call the council for a specific pick up. I think this method will produce even *more* in the landfill because being the only ones putting it out, the scavengers don’t know to come looking and therefore the truck cruncher gets most of it
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Caroline August 3, 2012
I try to sell some of my items online and at a nearby market. The money that I make helps provide some care packages to some deployed ADF members.
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Fiona August 3, 2012
Oh god, are you kidding? I LOVE rubbish day. The bargains I have found. It’s a bit different in my Melbourne hood; the council gives you 4 free rubbish outs a year, you just ring up and book em in. They then come round a few days later. By then, anything worth a cracker has been spirited away.
It also means on any given weekend, SOMEONE has stuff they don’t want on their verge. We actually call our verge ‘the magic verge’, because whenever we don’t want something, we put it on the verge, and it disappears within the hour. We’re on a mainish road, which helps, but I always feel a warm inner glow that our unwanted stuff has been – and I believe this is the ‘it’ term – up-cycled.
My partner is a whizz at fixing things, electronic and otherwise, and has to be physically restrained from taking home discarded video players. Because I live adjacent to a moneyed neighbourhood, sometimes good gear gets put out. I’ve picked up a fabulous office desk, a Weber, rolls of retro wall-paper, and recently, some large gilt picture frames which I didn’t have personal use for, but I mentioned them on FB and an artist friend was delirious with joy because you just can’t find that stuff in op-shops any more.
My only issue is that there’s nothing in place to deal with the never-ending dumping of old tvs. It’s disgraceful that we don’t have a scheme in place to break down and recycle dead tech. That’s criminal.
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Van Essa August 3, 2012
We once had a recycle centre where you could go and find anything you needed – the inside of washing machines make great chook nesting boxes – or you could take stuff to be recycled. It was badly managed by council and no longer exists which is a dreadful thing for our community.
Now we just put everything out on the footpath and wait for the non-council trucks to turn up and take what they can sell prior to the council trucks coming and removing the junk that is left.
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groovyK August 3, 2012
Council clean-ups have always been scavenger hunts for me – you’d circle the date in your calendar more as a day for hunting out treasures than getting rid of stuff.
My bugbear is the electrical stuff. With everyone switching to digital tv, the last clean-up in my area saw scores of old tvs and monitors dumped on the verge. Some retro gems – like an old Mac, complete with floppy disk drive – were picked up, but by clean-up day, almost all the tvs had been smashed in. And then those tvs weren’t even picked up by the council. Other electric gadgets get thrown out and rain damaged when sometimes all they need is a new plug or simple rewire, skills your average Joe and Jill no longer possess, because it’s cheaper to buy a new one.
I look forward to the next clean-up in my area, though, as I live next to a park, and people are constantly dumping furniture and the like there or in my front yard.
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sam August 3, 2012
Where we live the rubbish on the street only lasts about a minute. I think there are areas in sydney where people rely on those throw out days to furnish their houses. We got a lovely wooden desk for our son’s room from the last throw out.
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Sam W August 3, 2012
I put an old rusty bike out for verge collection a few years ago & was quite pleased when I saw it had been taken. When my neighbour over the road a few weeks later had a garage sale, guess what? There was my old beloved bike up for sale! The cheeky enterprising buggers! Yes, one person’s trash is another’s treasure, I’m all for recycling but everyone too lazy to bother now (apart from the diehard 2nd hand Rose’s who trawl curbside with their trailers in tow) . I too hate the toxic landfill ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality- there must be a better way to handle our junk problem.
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maggie August 3, 2012
We are a very wasteful nation, but in our local area of Kempsey we do not have a Council clean up and the council even removed the recycle bins from the town; things that are no longer considered useful are regularly discarded in the bush and surrounds….. I f you think your street looks bad think about the bushland surrounding our area
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Susan August 3, 2012
Our council have stopped our council hard rubbish service and issued each household with six free tip vouchers. That is ok if you have a trailer and the manpower to get to the tip. The oldies around here have to rely on anyone they can to do the favour for them. Hard Rubbish ending in this area was devastating for this family of hoarders and scavengers. It was always an exciting time as the kids and my husband would head off and find bike parts,old lawn mowers,metal etc. Out would come the spanner box and the welder and the tyre kit and with the help of the neighbours they would get things going to give to others. But now we have another substitute : a website called Albury-Wodonga Freecycle. When you are having a clean up you put an ad there-free of charge and bingo the phone starts ringing and everything goes without having to do anything. You must give before you take is the only rule. Try it out….. We still get access to all the things we need and the stuff we don’t need we just freecycle!
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Tracey August 3, 2012
Hi, you may find the attached article interesting – it’s a inspiring initiative that runs in Amsterdam – – old objects being repaired for reuse by older people. First saw it on SMH but wasn’t able to grab the link, so instead have attached the story from NYT.
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Lisa August 3, 2012
Our council has just introduced the yearly hard waste collection this year and I think it’s great, prior to this we had to phone them and organize our own yearly pick up. Our area is much cleaner now, it has definitely reduced the amount of illegal dumping in the area so I’m all for it.
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Chris August 3, 2012
The annual Council clean ups are full of terrific memories. As a poverty stricken student in Sydney, they provided instant FREE access to a wide variety of cast offs.Sydney’s rainiest periods tended to be November-January, so the rain sodden items were much less of an issue in autumn, winter and early spring. I live in an area that now only does picks ups after a phone call. There were all sorts of propaganda from Council claiming that this was an improvement. It isn’t. First, to call the Council you have to know about the scheme and notices are placed in rates notice [to owners] or in local paper [declining readership]. Who misses out? Students, renters and more mobile population – often the ones who most need it. So their cast off sits in our streets for weeks on end now, and happens across many weeks of the year instead of being concentrated over one week or so. Those piles Wendy detests acted as visual signals to the neighbours including those without access to the Council information systems, that a toss out was coming up. So they could participate too. Simultaneous to the call to collect system,Council tip fees have escalated. Again – unless you have a car – how do you get your old TV or sofa to the tip? The new system of collection is designed for and suits property owning, car owning, stable populations who tend to be motivated to do the right thing with their rubbish anyway. It has been designed to suit the people who normally are more thoughtful about their rubbish anyway. The new system actively penalises and encourages renters, non-car owners and those who a re more mobile to be even more irresponsible. The phone in system is a disaster in our area where street after street now has many, many months of each year with the verge littered with old beds, sofas, TV, and other items “waiting” endlessly to be collected. I pray for the return of the annual Council pick ups.
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Kris August 3, 2012
I love our twice-yearly council clean-up. It’s great for cleaning up the kids rooms – they are brilliantly timed for me as one comes just before Christmas & the other just before my youngest’s birthday!
I recycle what I can & give as much as I can to Vinnies/Smith Family etc, but all those broken bits of toys, the fry pan that is so old it only cooks where the element is, that scrap end of carpet that got wet when the cat accidentaly got locked in the shed overnight… they are only good for going to the tip.
And I have got some great stuff from them. My eldest son’s highchair came from a clean up, as did some of his & his brother’s toys & the stroller. Just give them a good wash & disinfect & they are ready to go. Brilliant!
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Ellen August 3, 2012
I’ve been trying to give away a sofa for weeks. It’s in good condition but no longer suits us – family has grown and the need for more seats meant replacing the old.
I’ve tried twice to give it to charity but because it won’t fit in the lift of my apartment building and has to go down two flights of stairs it’s too hard for the charities to move.
In fact one was so rude about it I’m considering stopping my donations all together (no more salvation).
The sofa is now on Gumtree and I’ve had one inquiry from someone wanting a good price for it. I asked them to go ahead and make me an offer and never heard from them again.
No wonder things get left out for Council clean up days. I too hate to see the waste and wanted to do something good for someone else but so far I’m stuck with a loved but unwanted sofa (in great condition).
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Miss Brown August 3, 2012
I hate how everything seems to sit out on the path for 2 weeks before it’s picked up! I don’t understand why everything has to sit out for so long, getting ruined by rain like you said. Can’t they arrange a day for each street?
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Danny Dix August 3, 2012
The traffic visibly slowed in our area coming up to pick up day. It was like a second hand smorgasbord of pre loved gems set out along the streets and avenues. Every now and then a car would dive out of the traffic, throw some prized catch into the boot and rejoin the morning slog into the city.
By the time the council truck arrived to crush the remainder beyond recognition, a week later, all the recyclable stuff had found new homes and the loads to the tip were halved. The council may be a lot of things, but they aren’t dumb. Then one day a dopey cop booked a scavenging recycler for “stealing by finding.” What? News travels fast around the burbs here…..and now the council truck hardly gets along two streets before its off to the tip with another chock-a-block full load of crushed treasure.
Stealing by finding…..next week I’m taking my shell collection back to the beach….after dark. -
sami August 3, 2012
In Perth we have more than two a year, and areas that don’t have council collection are entitled to a few free skip bins a year. It’s handy either way though I prefer the skips. I can never find good stuff cos everyone beats me to it, there really is only proper junk left out. Guess it depends where you live. I always keep an eye out for clam shells for the dogs and bookshelves for me but there’s never any… sigh.
My friend scored a massive wood table from verge collection once, it could probably seat 10 or so quite comfortably. It just needed the legs to be secured back on it properly so hubby did that and now they’ve got a brilliant outdoor setting for nothing. It’d be worth a couple grand to buy something like that!
Ellen, try ebay! You can list it for free if you start the bidding at 99c and it’d probably get more interest than gumtree. Otherwise if you know anyone whose kids are moving out for the first time I’m sure they would love a couch
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Valerie Parv August 3, 2012
The “stealing by finding” charge suggests the pick-up may now be done for money, the contractors if such they are, selling what they can, and objecting if all that is left is actual rubbish. Canberra had a brilliant idea called Second Hand Sunday when discarded but usable items could be put at the end of driveways for anyone who wanted them to take away for free. Participants’ addresses were listed if you wanted, online and in the paper. Cars went around to the listed addresses and most stuff was gone by lunchtime. Anything left had to be taken back inside by the resident before it became litter. Simple, no cost and made for a fun Sunday on all sides.
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Valerie Parv August 3, 2012
Another Canberra innovation was Free Tuesday Classies. classified ads run in Canberra Times for free as long as the item or set sold for less than $100. I think you were allowed 3 ads per person, and no business ads. Being free meant it was practical to list low-value items, a great way to clear out cupboards and garage.
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FloodVolunteer August 3, 2012
You forgot to mention how people can donate their quality unwanted items through the GIVIT.. THX
Checkout the website
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Sharon T August 3, 2012
Freecycle works a treat, I’ve used it often. You’d be surprised at what folk will take (if it’s free). We are though a very wasteful society, and it will come very soon I think to those of us in the metros, to us having to pay for anything to be dumped.
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Liana August 3, 2012
Hi Wendy, I’m so glad you have brought up the topic of recycling! You are probably aware that there is quite a campaign going on right now about a Container Deposit Scheme.
This would mean we would have the same system that South Australia has had for over 30 years where bottles and cans are returned for the 10cent deposit.
NT implemented the scheme in January already reporting around 6 million containers that have been diverted from landfill or our environment. The other states have no such system and therefore our streets, parks and waters are littered with bottles and cans.There is great opposition being mounted through the Food & Grocery Council by Coca Cola, Coopers and another 150 other companies that want to see a scheme that places more recycling bins in public places – you may have seen their ads. But this would add more costs to Councils and anything that has more than 3% contamination goes into landfill anyway – we have all seen the crap that goes into recycling bins.
Here is a link that shows that the government litter report they have been using against the scheme has been acknowledge as ‘Not Credible’ by its authors just 3 days ago – A blow for them and a win for us, YEAH!
http://www.boomerangalliance.org.au/cash-for-containers/cash-media/89-anti-container-depositcd-campaign-got-its-facts-wrong.htmlCleanup.org.au is working in conjunction with Boomerang Alliance to get this scheme passed through parliament. Apparently the decision is being made on August 25 – so WE STILL HAVE TIME!
I have been travelling Europe for the last 8 months, and have seen fantastic container deposit systems being used in Germany, Amsterdam, Vienna. In SA you don’t see the amount of rubbish that we see in Sydney.
Why after 21 years of Clean Up Australia campaigns are we still collecting so much rubbish from our surrounds, with plastics still being the predominate waste material?
I do not work with any organisation. I am just a woman form Sydney who wants to see us clean up our act. I also don’t want the Ba#@$%s to win at our expense.
PEOPLE CAN – write to their state minister, made very easy through this link http://www.cleanup.org.au/au/get-active-mp-letter
Then please tell your friends to do the same.
PLEASE WENDY AND AUSTRALIA, WE NEED YOUR HELP TO GET THIS THROUGH.
Ok I’m going to stop now, I think you get my point.
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Loz August 3, 2012
We have 4 hard rubbish collections per year yet you still get rubbish piling up on verges in between. I don’t understand why an old tv or couch cant just sit in a corner until the next clean up. Just shows a disregard for your local neighbourhood. We also have regular green waste drop offs which ensure the waste is mulched and used locally. Yet people still wait for the hard rubbish days to do those big pruning jobs. What a waste indeed.
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Helen HL August 3, 2012
wendy, my home is furnished with pieces I have plucked from the streets of the affluent north shore of Sydney. I moved back to Sydney after a 7 year seachange that rendered me divorced and supporting myself. I LOVE coucil cleanup days. You will never stop wasteful excess but what they afford the likes of me, is an opportunity to pick up a chair, a coffee table, a beach umbrella for free… something that someone ina better place no longer needs, but is just great for me.. a single mum who doesn’rt mind second hand. I’m not too proud to stop bu a pile of ‘junk’ and find a treasure that make my life and that of my 2 kids happier. All the best. dont hate… just work with it
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Joanna August 4, 2012
We used to have a much loved and used recycle depot here – alas no more.
And Midnight Blue, the truck comes here and crunches everything that hasn’t been salvaged by passerbys and off it is trucked to landfill.
Makes me cry too. -
mummaducka August 5, 2012
I live about 5 Km out of a country town in NSW. Since they introduced charges for loads at our local tip you have no idea the number of dumped loads we have just on the nearby stock routes or side of the road right in front of our properties. Many have names and addresses on matter in the load, but our council and police refuse to do anything about it. I have actually gathered up some of that ‘mail’ and delivered it back to the rightful owners. I have also seen cars that are pulled up and have hopped in my car and driven up to them and asked them if they are dumping rubbish, one guy was sweeping and cleaning out the back of his ute- it had wet grain in it which really stinks, and a few bottles and cans in it, and he assured me that he was going to pick the bottles and cans back up, which he did, but probably only because I was on to him, but really, couldn’t he have done it at his house? Our neighbours and us are absolutely sick of it.
We are just that far out of town that we have no rubbish collection, nor this sort of twice a year collection. We actually have a small skip bin that I very conservatively put rubbish in, it usually takes me about 12 months to have it emptied, I have chooks for food scraps and we burn what can be burned plus I take the recycling in to the depot in town. The point is that I have to pay, both in my time and money when I have to pick up these dumped loads, when in town these people have the service included in their rates. It Infuriates me.
When I cleaned out my mother’s house in Baulkham hills in sydney, thank god for that verge collection. She had old wardrobes,beds and kitchen cabinets lining all of her double garage walls for storage. I moved all of them down on to the footpath with a hand trolley and people helped themselves. It saved me so much hassle of having them collected and dumped. People were very grateful for them. The painted wardrobes were lovely but I just did not have the energy at the time to renovate them.
I really like the sounds of the free vouchers for the tip with your rates notices.
I am all for the verge collections as it might just help reduce this sort of dumping around my house from going on. Let me assure you it is a constant, constant problem.
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Danny Dix August 5, 2012
I have a large plumbers van. When I can’t see out the rear view mirror any more for the coffee cups, pipe offcuts and wrappers, it’s time to go empty it again on the front lawn of the guy who never paid his bill three years ago. That guy has saved me HEAPS at the tip.
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Joni August 6, 2012
I LOVE Council Clean ups, so much amazing stuff in our house has come from the local clean ups over the years and when I am finished with it eg prams or baby gear, I put it out for the next family.
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Helena Handbasket August 7, 2012
So you only noticed the problem with materiality once materials becomes waste? Waste is just a symptom. We need to slow consumption.
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Rosi August 11, 2012
Try living in a remote country town near SA. Despite heavy council rates there is no hard rubbish pick up at all. You have to take your stuff to the dump yourself and pay a premium to leave it there.
Just raised rates to dump by 200% and more. There is going to be tons dumped in the bush now. The pile of TVs and IT rubbish is disgraceful. Only way is sometimes to sneak non compost-able garden waste into the kitchen bin, is that very bad?? Agree we need to stop buying and re-use and recycle everything.
The pollution of the ubiquitous woodchip MDF made furniture makes me gag. Does anyone know if IKEA woodchip stuff is environmentally clean? – Sweden does make non toxic good stuff but I cannot find out anything about it. Was featured on Kevin McCloud’s program.
Would LOVE a council clean up round here. -
Lucille October 23, 2012
Urban myth? A bar fridge was left on the nature strip with a sign “FREE” and no one took it. A couple of days later the sign was changed to “$50 – LEAVE MONEY UNDER FRONT DOOR” and it was nicked!
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Joanne November 14, 2012
I hate it,,, the back lane behind my block of units ends up looking like a street from the slums of Calcutta,,,, its revolting,,,wasteful and a ridiculous way to re cycle,
most of the good stuff is picked over and taken before it is collected and that is usually by market stall holders who sell it at a profit, and the rest ends up in land fill,,,,,,, TOTALLY RIDICULOUS, A UGLY -
Emma May 15, 2013
i love hard rubbish days. it IS the equivalent of swapping with your neighbours. By the time the council actually picks stuff up, only the stuff that really is useless to anyone is left.
