While most grey nomads will – sadly – be accustomed to finding a bit of litter at some campsites, the issue has gone next level at a beautiful national park in Queensland.
Rather than a few empty beer cans, or perhaps a broken campchair, visitors to the Tewantin National Park near Noosa were confronted by huge heaps of rubbish.
Many veteran travellers have long claimed that locals are responsible for most of the rubbish problems in ‘pristine’ areas, and that certainly appears to be the case in this instance.
Yahoo News reports that photos of the mess show bikes, children’s toys, household appliances, boxes, soft plastics and food wrappers in two massive piles on the grass.
The pictures were shared to Facebook by a community member who said he had notified the council.
“Hopefully, we can work together as a community and get the belongings back to the rightful owners,” he said.
The pictures of the rubbish outraged people online, especially considering there is a tip just a few kilometres away from the makeshift dumpsite.
“Disgusting behaviour by these grubs,” one person wrote in the comments.
However, a few people noted that taking trash to the tip can be quite expensive and perhaps not an option for everyone.
“I’m happy to come and take it to the tip, but I’m not paying for it,” another person said. “I assume the council will come and move this?”
The poster said the council should scour through the rubbish to find receipts that could help find the individuals responsible. Others were also hopeful there would be names or bank details on some of the paper so that Noosa Council could identify the litterers.
Noosa Council confirmed to Yahoo News Australia that a resident had reported the illegal dumping and officers were now responding to the incident.
An investigation is underway to identify those responsible.
“In the last 12 months we have received 325 reports of general household waste being dumped illegally across the shire,” Noosa Council Waste Manager Kyrone Dodd said in the statement. “The clean-up and impact on resources can be quite expensive.”
The above dumping of rubbish was obviosly not from travelling nomads. and was no doubt from the local area. I recall taking 4 large plastic bags full of grass clippings from my daughters house in Coburg Vic to the local council dump and was asked to pay $55. I was discusted at the fee and reversed out and went back home and disposed of the grass clippings through the bin collection over a few weeks. That is why people dump in parks is the outrageous fees Councils charge. If Council had recycle centers like Logan City in Qld where they have a huge recycle center and they sell worthwhile goods to cover the dumping fees.Even commercial dumping is encouraged so the center can sell items of use. What is your unwanted item is someone’s treasure,
And yet dogs aren’t allowed!!
JUST maaybbbe council need to reconsider the cost of using their tips, would be the first step.
Confiscate vehicles caught or traced back of culprits.
I’ve actually seen locals come into a camp area dump there rubbish and drive away
Which it looks like what is the case here
This looks like a road block. Some locals don’t like visitors.
While cretinous behaviour is, and will always be, endemic throughout any community, the idiots abounding city hall haven’t the mediocre skill set needed to provide for community garbage disposal systems to minimise random dumping !
COST, COST, COST. You may well find that part of the high charges problem is State based “environmental charges” applied to councils per tonne of material dumped.
Possibly a sleazy landlord cleaning out the detritus left behind by a vacating tenant, or a sleazy vacating tenant too lazy & cheap arsed to take their garbage to a tip.
Residents should not have to pay to dump rubbish at Council owned facilities full stop. I thought that is why these facilities were there in the first place…to allow local residents to dispose of rubbish in a controlled environment.
Most Councils issue a number of “dump” vouches annually to rate payers, but this really is of no value to the tenant renting the property, as very few landlords would pass the vouchers on to the tenant for them to utilise.
Sadly there will always be the scumbags who just don’t give a damn as the photo shows. Just as these same vandals will willfully damage the environment though their thoughtless actions.
The clean up will always be left to others in the community…
Councils in areas like this that have dumping problems should be encouraged to supply x amount of tip passes per year per ratepayer and hopefully reduce this problem. I would think overall it would be cheaper than sending Council workers/rangers out to clean up these messes. You will still get some that have no respect but I do believe tip passes are part of the answer.
Jeff Fulton.
We have a local dump which we get so many trips per year. They do a lot of recycling sell goods so they make money, think someone has the control of it. We have been many places Geocaching and the amount of rubbish, mattresses, washing machines etc. is disgusting, but agree with a previous person shires should not charge to take things to the dump. They make enough out of rates and our shire in particular waste money and have no idea how to manage it. It is no excuse for the amount of dumping that we have seen.
How do you police a grub being a grub. Close your eyes for a second and a grub will do what a grub does.