Five trailer loads of rubbish recovered from Gunnedah’s Porcupine Reserve

Needle canister boxes were among the rubbish items recovered from Gunnedah’s Porcupine Reserve on Sunday.

The clean up was organised by Gunnedah Urban Landcare Group as part of Clean Up Australia Day.

A small group of GULG members and friends undertook a marathon clean up on Porcupine Reserve, focusing on the northern cliff face, Little Porky and the lookout area.

Volunteers discovered a large amount of rubbish on the cliff face below the lookout including televisions, computers, shopping trolleys, a microwave, as well as many tyres and other household items.

Landcare members have been working in this area over the last six months and already have removed five trailer loads of rubbish.

The area below the lookout contains an ecologically-endangered plant community – the semi-evergreen vine thicket – this is a rare community and often visited by researchers keen to learn more about its occurrence here in Gunnedah.

“It’s terrible that they have to walk up through piles of rubbish to get to it,” GULG chair George Truman said.

“While most people do the right thing and take their rubbish to the tip there is a small part of our community that think its fine to the use the lookout as a rubbish tip.

“The area around Little Porky car park was filled with boxes of ‘party’ needle canisters which is a danger to people that use this area – it just shows to the total disrespect for this area.”

Mr Truman said the needle receptacles were later disposed through the appropriate means and no children were involved in the clean up of this area.

He also commended the many local people who walk up Porcupine Reserve daily and pick up 1-2 bags of food wrappers and bottles at the lookout car park.

“We should not need a special day to pick up rubbish its everyone’s responsibility, but more importantly if you see people dumping rubbish report it,” he said.

“If you see someone littering from their vehicle, you can report them online to the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), or call the EPA Environment Line on 131 555 to report illegal dumping.”

Cleaning up dumped rubbish around Porky Lookout.

Rod Browne with some of the rubbish recovered on Sunday.