Campbelltown Council wants to ramp up its fight against rubbish dumping, but says it needs financial help from the State Government.
A report to council for tomorrow night’s meeting says an illegal dumping program financed by the state for four years government was making headway.
However, funding for this program ended in April, and council now wants to see it being made available again.
The report says that between July last year and the end of the program, council acted on more than 1,100 complaints of illegal dumping across the local government area of Campbelltown.
“These incidents resulted in 673 notices being issued to alleged offenders, 87 formal warnings and 300 penalty notices.
“The remaining investigations failed to find an offender or adequate evidence to proceed with regulatory action,’’ says the report.
“Unfortunately, the EPA funding of this program ceased on 30 April 2022.
“The success of this program over the past four years has been evaluated as being critically important to both Campbelltown City Council and on a broader regional basis.’’
The recommendation to be considered by councillors is that council write to the minister for environment and heritage to request funding to employ a dedicated staff member to prevent and respond to illegally dumped waste.
It is also suggested that council staff work with the department of housing to establish an illegal dumping education program specific to addressing illegal dumping of waste in the department of housing areas within Campbelltown.
The report was in response to a notice of motion by Labor councillor Meg Oates at the March council meeting.
Council voted to investigate ways to combat the increasing levels of illegal kerbside rubbish dumping across the city and that a report be presented as soon as possible on the outcome of the investigation.
“Despite our best efforts and resourcing of the area of managing illegally dumped waste, it is an issue that is difficult to control and arguably impossible to achieve 100 percent compliance with,’’ the report said.
“Although most of our community are committed to disposing of their waste through approved methods and are very active in bringing illegally dumped waste to our attention, there are always going to be those that put their own interests before that of our community,’’ the report said.
“Illegal dumping is something that occurs across the whole of the LGA and is an issue that all councils continue to battle with.’’
