00:00An ugly and costly mess.
00:05In Melbourne's rapidly expanding north-west, illegally dumped commercial and household
00:09waste litters the landscape.
00:11These are colouring books, there's bits of cars, there's wood, styrofoam, there's some
00:17building waste.
00:19Charlie Jarrod's earth-moving business usually focuses on construction sites, but lately
00:25he's spending his days picking up illegally dumped rubbish.
00:29It seems like it was never an issue and then suddenly it's a huge problem.
00:32Calls used to come in once a month, now they're almost daily.
00:37To collect rubbish, he says, is dumped by locals and dodgy contractors.
00:43A lot of people will say that they're tipping it off at a reputable site and then they just
00:46don't and they pocket all the money.
00:48When Jack Medcraft was on the Sunbury Council, he could see the problem growing.
00:53Now he says it's an epidemic.
00:56They don't want to go to the tip.
00:57They get a hard waste collection.
00:58They don't want to use it.
00:59You know, it's easier to get a trail and dump your crap out in the street.
01:02The Environment Protection Authority says rubbish dumping in Victoria has doubled over
01:07the past five years.
01:09They receive about 11 reports a day, that's over 4,000 reports in a year, but last year
01:15they only brought 55 matters to court.
01:17Penalties will range from about $400 if you're an individual that litters, but for more aggravated
01:23pollution that could be millions of dollars in fines, but equally jail time.
01:27I don't think the penalties are harsh enough, really, you hit them in the court, what happens?
01:31You know, a $1,000 fine I think it is.
01:34That's nothing.
01:35The responsibility of roadside rubbish falls on local councils, but they say they don't
01:39have the adequate resources to clean it all up.
01:42So some residents are paying for it themselves.
01:46And Charlie Jarrett says that won't change until authorities crack down on offenders.
01:51You'd see it decline if they actually, you know, took it seriously.
01:54A mess that's still some way from being cleaned up.
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