Homes NSW Community Engagement Manager Lynne Welch and staff at Smallmon Brothers Waste and Recycling helped Tolland residents clean up 69 tonnes of waste. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
Homes NSW and Argyle House have once again come together to provide a free community clean-up day for the people of Tolland.
Following a successful event in 2023, where over 50 volunteers from a number of community groups collected over 51 tonnes of waste, this year’s event continued building on strong community involvement with more than 69 tonnes of waste collected from over 160 households.
Over 40 volunteers rolled up their sleeves to help with the clean-up effort which saw the disposal of more than 11 skip bins of rubbish and 49 unusable mattresses.
“The reason we’ve held the community clean-up event is to showcase to the Tolland community that their current needs are just as important as the future needs, as we prepare the delivery of the Tolland Renewal Project,” Homes NSW Community Engagement Manager Lynne Welch said.
“We had a number of partner organisations that have put their hand up and volunteered their time and service to help out and collect rubbish from all around the suburb so that the people of Tolland can live in a clean area.
“Dumping fees at the tip can be quite expensive and not really accessible for people to get rid of their large waste items. By providing this service, it enables them to clear waste from their houses and make sure their neighbourhood is more presentable for them to live in.”
Ms Welch said the event seemed to be quite popular with the Tolland community, with many ready to dispose of their waste well before the event started.
“Within only a couple of hours we had three of our skip bins filled and in need of changing. We had residents that came with their own vehicles full of rubbish. We organised for people to have their waste picked up by the team here.
“Plenty of people came down, dumped their waste and stayed for the sausage sizzle and chat with the many volunteers who gave up their time.”
Ms Welch said that in the lead-up to the clean-up day, Homes NSW and Argyle House had numerous consultations with the Tolland community and various community groups to better understand the needs of the people living there, which helped both organisations leading the day.
“We really want the community to voice their opinions and concerns and really be a part of the consultation process leading to the renewal project,” she said.
“This has been a project that has been in the works since 2019 and since then we’ve had a bunch of feedback to several surveys that we’ve conducted and we even held a Minecraft activity for the kids at Red Hill Public School to provide a really fun way to explain what it’s planned.”
Loading ...
