Collaborating across departments to reduce dumping

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.
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