Rubbish ‘left to rot’ after clean-up

The image of a West Auckland park was recently tainted after rubbish removal trucks were delayed by well-meaning volunteers.

Hart Domain is a family favourite with a playground and surrounding cafes off Henderson’s Vitasovich Ave.

But a rubbish pile, exceeding 100m, was  left for nearly a week. The reason? Auckland Council rubbish collection trucks encountered difficulties to trying to reach the site, located in the centre of a grassy area.

Volunteers of the international welfare foundation, ‘We Love U’, collected the rubbish on May 22 as a part of its world clean-up initiative.

Bikes, mattresses and household furniture were among the items pulled out of the stream and surrounding bush and pathways.

Building materials, furniture, bikes and food waste were among the rubbish collected by ‘We Love U’ volunteers. Photo: Bella Askelund

Local resident, Cameron Roby-Mais, 21, said the rubbish pile stopped him taking his younger cousin to the playground.

He said he didn’t know why it was there but assumed it was organised, due to the cones surrounding the pile.

“What I don’t understand is why someone would just leave it there to rot,” said Mr Roby-Mais.

Brenda Brady from the Henderson-Massey Local Board said via email the council could not get trucks onto the site immediately to take it away, but promised it would be collected.

She said the group did the same cleanup last year and collected even more rubbish.

The amount of rubbish had to do with people “not understanding the importance of the environment”.

“It is also laziness, as much is household rubbish and furniture dumped at night; or poorly managed businesses that push rubbish into the stream instead of running their businesses more professionally,” said Mrs Brady.

William Seung Jung, leader of the We Love U clean-up initiative, apologised for the inconvenience but hoped the pile sent a message to the community.

“Hopefully through this incident maybe the locals can see and understand how much we are in need to look after our environment,” said Mr Seung Jung.

He said this could be the “much-needed turning point or awakening” that the Waitakere community needed.

The same volunteers had undertaken to meet council workers to help move the rubbish when the council was ready.