Blacktown to rubbish graffiti

Blacktown Deputy Mayor Kathie Collins has revealed to the Advocate that graffiti cost the council a staggering $850,000 a year to clean.

Until recently the council has reducedg graffiti by simply removing it.

But this traditional method is set to change with two new initiatives, which essentially involves paint-fighting paint, set to be trialled by the council soon.

A report released by the council’s works and finance committee last week has revealed plans to paint public rubbish bins throughout Blacktown with murals.

The proposal, which includes painting the bins with seasonal themes, came about after the council’s Internal Taskforce Against Graffiti group identified a “high incidence of graffiti on rubbish bin enclosures.”

The second initiative, Graffix Project, has been successfully piloted since January last year.

The initiative, which was originally started as a mentoring project in Emerton Youth Recreation Centre, provides at-risk youths with a role model to guide them in carrying out mural designs on approved public utilities.

Guided and supported by an experienced and well respected aerosol artist, Graffix participants have since gone on to design and paint murals such as Blacktown’s Animal Holding Facility. “I absolutely support it (the painting of murals),” Cr Collins said.

“We’re (the council) spending $850,000 a year on graffiti removal and doing something like this seems to work ... I think it’s a way of stopping it (graffiti).” Cr Collins said she also supported the Graffix Project as a means to redirecting troubled youngsters on the right track.

The report will be up for discussion among councillors at the council’s next ordinary council meeting on Wednesday, November 3.