A Brimbank business has coughed up more than $50,000 cleaning up illegally dumped rubbish in less than a year.
FCG Property says it frequently sends pick-up trucks to its Albanvale project Brimbank Waters to collect household and industrial waste that people dump at the site.
FCG development director John Griffin said the company “can’t keep a handle” on rubbish dumping.
“This is a big headache for us – it’s got out of hand,” he said.
He said that just before Christmas someone threw asbestos sheets on to the site, leaving FCG with a $5000 clean-up bill. Around the same time, an FCG tradesman found a house under construction littered with used syringes and someone passed out on the floor.
Mr Griffin said that once each stage of the development was completed, the land was handed over to Brimbank council, which has shared the burden of rubbish collection.
“We’ve spent a hell of a lot,” he said. “In all [last year] we would have spent in excess of $50,000. This place has been a well.”
Brimbank city development director Stuart Menzies said the council had investigated dumping at the Albanvale site and had collected evidence to help track down and fine some of the culprits.
“A number of offenders have been identified and are being made to clean-up their own rubbish, rather than this be at the cost of ratepayers,” he said.
Illegal rubbish dumping is a major problem for outer suburban councils.
In the 2015-16 year, Brimbank spent $700,000 collecting and disposing of illegally dumped waste. In neighbouring Hume, it cost ratepayers $1.9 million in 2015-16. Whittlesea was left with a similar clean-up bill last year.
The Victorian government collects landfill levies on waste disposed at tips. A Department of Environment, Land, Planning and Water spokesman did not respond before deadline to questions about the amount of money the state government has amassed from landfill levies.
But a state government spokesman said $136 million collected through the scheme would be poured into the Sustainability Fund in the next four years to support local government, businesses and communities in waste management.
