Bayside Council’s upgraded CCTV monitoring system is helping the council to crackdown on a record number of illegal dumpers.
Last year the council collected more than 770 tones of illegally dumped rubbish costing $172,000 in disposal costs.
There were a total of 3278 incident of illegal dumping reported in that time, equivalent to 2.2 average incidents reported per suburb per week, or one incident reported for every 51 residents.
Bayside Council’s collection of illegally dumped rubbish is helped by the 184 Safety Cameras installed over the local government area.
The council’s monitoring system at Brighton Le Sands uses state-of-the-art cameras that are able to focus onto an individual standing 18-kilometres away.
Beside fixed cameras with 360 degree rotation capability, the monitoring system also uses a number of mobile cameras that are positioned to capture illegal activity in deemed “Hot Spot” areas.
The placement of these cameras is dependent on police intelligence reports relating to hoon activity and councils internal record keeping on dumping hotspots.
The locations of the mobile cameras are not revealed to the public.
Closed circuit television (CCTV) brings benefits to the community to assist in the reduction of crime and does lead to enhanced public safety in specific locations or in a particular area, Bayside Council mayor, Bill Saravinovski said.
Council’s CCTV Program is designed to facilitate greater community safety to reduce or prevent crime.
“These Safety Cameras are there to protect the community against those who willingly want to ruin it and make it unsafe for everyone,” Councillor Saravinovski said.
“Dumping Rubbish and especially asbestos is a criminal offence and I want to see those responsible face the strongest penalties, even going straight to goal.
”It’s not fair to the ratepayers who have to pay for the actions of these criminals, the safety cameras will catch them”.
In other initiatives, Bayside Council is sorting the rubbish from the rubbish in a modern approach to reducing household waste being sent to landfill.
Since July 2017, Bayside Council has been sending all general waste in red-lidded bins to a mechanical and biological treatment (MBT) facility that extracts recoverable material, separates organic matter for compost and reduces the amount of waste going to landfill.
This $60 million facility at Woodlawn, built to service Sydney’s SSROC Council Group, accepts around 20 per cent of Sydney’s putrescible waste materials. Designed to process about 120,000 tonnes per year it produces about 72,000 tonnes of compost.
Bayside Council has a pro-active approach to waste management and is currently investigating whether a two bin or a three bin system will provide the best financial, operational, social, environmental and sustainable solution for the future.
Bayside Council actively encourages residents to reuse the green waste from their gardens by providing advice and assistance in composting and worm farming.
Bayside Council’s Waste Education Officers provide seminars, workshops and demonstrations on composting and using worm farms.
Bayside Council also provides twenty-two (22) green waste drop off services at the Bexley and Botany Depots throughout the year.
For details see:
Council’s Waste and Cleansing Services Guide 2018, download the Bayside Waste Services App, or go to the council’s website: www.bayside.nsw.gov.au
