GARBAGE overflowing from bins at Tea Gardens’ Lions Lookout Park is being cleaned up once a week by volunteers, but they can’t keep up.

And it’s not just rubbish from weekend visitors, tyres, ovens and even fridges are being dumped at the park.

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The Hawks Nest Tea Gardens Progress Association reckon its up to council to help clean up.

A few months ago, the News Of The Area reported that council planned to remove eight wheelie bins from Pindimar South Reserve.

The unpopular decision meant the only legal way to dispose of waste was taking it to Tea Gardens Waste Management Centre, and paying for the privilege.

‘Non-urban’ landowners, who pay rates but have no designated garbage pick up, think it’s time council did something.

The transfer station only opens on alternate mornings and afternoons, is shut on Saturdays and people are illegally dumping waste.

“The Hawks Nest Tea Gardens Progress Association acknowledges that council’s current policy is unrealistic, and this is ultimately on council to sort out,” said an association spokesperson.

Lions Club volunteers, who clean the park every Monday morning, report that dumping and overflowing bins are a recurring situation, and have even alerted the Environmental Protection Authority, which has subsequently installed surveillance cameras in the area.

“Plenty of CCTV warning signs have been placed in the area, but they were also torn down,” one Lions Club volunteer told NOTA.

“We’ve even seen fridges, ovens and tyres, and a bin was actually stolen from the lookout.”

Meanwhile, the new, narrow-slotted bins at Pindimar South do nothing to address the causes of this problem.

By Thomas O’KEEFE