Cumberland Council Mayor Steve Christou is waging war on major supermarkets and leading the charge against local trolley dumpers.
The Mayor is responding to the growing trolley dumping blitz in the local council by forcing supermarket giants to start collecting their abandoned trollies or face the penalties.
“We approached supermarket retailers 12 months ago to work with us on this issue but there was no positive response,” Christou said recently.
“It was time to take matters into our own hands so we gave them 30 days to pick up their trolleys,” said Christou.
The Cumberland Council says the move sprung Woolworths into committing to fortnightly collections after the Council turned hundreds of their trolleys into scrap.
“The major retailers, the profits they’re making is astronomical,” Mayor Christou said.
“It’s very minimal to pay someone correctly eight or nine hours a day to round up trolleys.”
The Cumberland Council has crushed over a thousand trolleys, including half of the 1,497 they found between February and May, and received close to $30,000 in collection fees in five months.
The hard-line measure is costing the supermarket giants thousands of dollars, with an average trolley cart from Coles costing from $150 to $200.
Mr. Christou is championing a growing number of complaints from local residents, particularly those living with a disability who struggle to navigate blocked footpaths.
“Nobody wants to walk down their street and see abandoned trolleys, and have their suburb look like a ghetto,” Mr. Christou said.
The Council is pushing for the same powers other Australian states have in fining supermarkets that don’t collect their trolleys.
A supermarket company in Queensland pays above $5500 for failing to collect their abandoned trolleys.
Source: ABC News
