Community organisations in Kelmscott are suffering from careless rubbish dumpers leaving piles of unusable goods at their doorstep, forcing the volunteer organisations to pay for their removal instead of using the money to support local groups.
Volunteers at 2nd Chance Op Shop have recently expressed frustration at the piles of rubbish that have been appearing along Railway Avenue, awaiting staff when they arrive at work each morning.
They say school holidays are a particularly bad time for these sorts of incidents.
The Op Shop, a registered charity which relies on donations of pre-loved clothes and goods, this year celebrated nearly $500,000 in donations to the local community.
“This is the second day in a row our volunteers have arrived to rubbish dumped out the front and out the back,” a recent Facebook post read.
“Each time we get our bins emptied it costs us over $100, that means we can’t help our community.”
One volunteer said staff are sometimes forced to stop donations from coming in just to deal with the refuse.
“It’s happening all along the strip here, they dump stuff and we can’t use it, then we have to put it in our bin and we get charged to have it removed.
“We have signs out and we try to advise people of what we can and can’t take, but some people just leave stuff beside the bin and take off.
“They know where the tip is, they have tip passes but unfortunately some people just don’t care.
“It is frustrating.”
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