Jolly old junk

By Melissa Meehan
IT’S beginning to look a lot like Christmas … if your idea of the festive season consists of trash on the town’s nature strips.
As many residents start to put their decorations up ready for the silly season, others are piling mounds of unwanted goods on their nature strip for hard rubbish collections.
Pakenham resident Mick Page says the two should be separated, not lumped together in the same month.
“On one hand you have people going to lots of trouble putting up Christmas lights and decorations,” he said.
“And on the other you have piles of rubbish along the streets detracting from all their hard work.”
Cardinia resident Karen Muntz agreed.
“It’s a good time for a clean-out,” she said.
“But it’s kind of ugly when you have a family barbecue and have rubbish everywhere.”
In a short survey by the News, the majority of residents who answered said while they believed hard rubbish collections were important, the timing could be changed.
Councillor Brett Owen also weighed in on the issue.
He said hard waste collections were confusing for Pakenham residents as Pakenham currently took part in four of the five collection weeks across the shire.
“This needs to be changed so that Pakenham has collections spread over no more than two weeks,” Cr Owen said.
“This will reduce the need to have hard waste on nature strips for over a month.”
Cardinia Shire Council spokesman Paul Dunlop said the hard waste collection initiatives had been supported in the community since their introduction.
He said the latest collection began in November, but due to the size of the shire and number of households it spread into December.
“The council has strongly encouraged residents not to place out their hard waste until the Sunday before a collection,” he said.
“But unfortunately, once people see a hard rubbish collection is underway elsewhere in the town it is often a prompt to follow suit – and not always within the appropriate timeframe.”
Mr Dunlop said it would be extremely difficult to alter the collection period for Cardinia as it would cause repercussions throughout Melbourne and the waste industry.
“There are only a handful of companies that conduct hard waste collections and the collections are designed to fit in with one another,” he said.
“All hard waste collections for the shire will be completed by Friday 18 December, well in time for Christmas.”