It's bin piling up in Hawthorn

This is the junk heap which Boroondara Council sat on for eight days.

Hawthorn’s Smart St Reserve was turned into an illegal dumping ground last week, with discarded rubbish including TVs, furniture and building materials piled up, during the council’s hard rubbish collection period.

Melville St resident Susanne Baxandall, pictured, said she contacted the council on September 27 to clean up the mess. The council cleaned up last Wednesday, just 45 minutes after Progress Leader contacted them, despite Ms Baxandall phoning eight days earlier.

Ms Baxandall said rubbish started being dumped on September 20, when “under the cover of darkness” tree branches were dumped next to the park entrance and rubbish bin.

“It was followed by elderly men with wheel barrows, tradies with building materials, cars with trailers laden, people on foot with children in tow dumping old television sets at dusk and dawn,” Ms Baxandall said.

“It was like a taxi rank with cars pulling up day and night, people rummaging through the rubbish.”

She said she feared exposed nails in the rubbish were dangerous for children playing among it.

Ms Baxandall urged the council to scrap nominated days for hard waste collections and instead give ratepayers access to one to two personal collections a year, like schemes at Port Phillip and Glen Eira councils.

Boroondara Council’s spokeswoman Deb Ganderton said “they were unable to find a complaint logged on the matter”.

“We have taken action to clear the rubbish as soon as we became aware of the illegal dumping,” Ms Ganderton said.

She said the council was reviewing its hard rubbish collection service this financial year.

Fines for dumping rubbish are up to $4778.