AT least one Logan City councillor is taking it upon herself to clean up the streets of her division.
And she wants residents to help by “dobbing” in any grubby neighbours who are breaking the rules by leaving garbage on the kerbside.
Teresa Lane is councillor for Division 2, which takes in Kingston, Logan Central, Woodridge and parts of Underwood.
She says she’s tired of being known as one of Logan’s dirtier parts of town.
So she’s reached into her own pocket to print fliers encouraging people to be part of her “Dob in a Dumper!” campaign.
Logan City Council already has the infrastructure in place for people to report illegal dumping – by calling 3412 3412 or going to logan.qld.gov.au/illegal-dumping.
But Cr Lane is so incensed by people doing the wrong thing that she wants to take the system to a new level.
“Did you know that each year council spends more than $450,000 on picking up illegally-dumped household items and rubbish from our footpaths, parks and vacant land?” she says in a flyer due to be delivered to Division 2 households this week.
Cr Lane said she had support from council’s compliance officers who will be asked to get tougher when issuing $500-$2669 fines to people doing the wrong thing.
Fines are more for businesses.
“Where the address is not an owner-occupied address, council will write to landlords advising of tenants’ illegal dumping activities, as this may be in breach of tenancy conditions under residential leases,” the flyer to households says.
As part of the “Dob in a Dumper!” process, people are being asked to pull out their cameras and notebooks to record the date, time and location of illegally dumped items.
They’re being asked to take photos of people or vehicles being used to illegally dump items, including a record of license plate numbers.
The tough community initiative is a trial that Cr Lane hopes makes its way to other divisions within the city.
“To make this trial become a success story for Logan, I need residents to participate and dob in a dumper,” she said.
“If you are alert and report illegal dumping we can fine the offenders.”
In a cover letter to residents, she says: “Each week residents ask what council can do to clean up the illegal dumping of household equipment and rubbish from vacant blocks, parks and footpaths.
“Just a few weeks after the last kerbside collection, our streets are again littered with lounges and other household items. It’s time we worked together to stop this behaviour from continuing.”
Kerbside collections for Division 2 were done in August and September. There are no more collections scheduled for that area until at least the second half of next year.
