Illegal dumping case study – City of Canada Bay
Goal
Using a cross-departmental steering committee, learn from council’s past experience and engage with communities on the problems of residential kerbside and construction waste dumping.
Key actions and results
- Established a steering committee with members from Environmental Health, Enforcement, Communications and City Services sections to build upon past experience.
- Produced advertising materials, which were widely displayed and distributed, to increase awareness of the costs (social, economic and environmental) of illegal dumping.
- Improved internal processes in managing illegal dumping responses, encouraging the community to report incidents.
- Increased patrols of prioritised hotspots and developed tools such as notification tape and stickers to request information on dumping incidents.
Top tips
- Overall budget, resource and time allocation for each component of the project need careful planning and consideration, especially in relation to other council initiatives.
- Although resource-intensive, conducting face-to-face interactions and waste audits had a significant influence on changing behaviours about construction waste management. This has assisted in preventing illegal dumping. Waste audits also help improve councils’ regulatory profile and hence act as a significant deterrent.
- There was a significant increase in the quality of illegal dumping reports received by council, indicating the success of the program.