Council Cleanups - Does Canberra have them?

Ezy Scrap has a free pickup of scrap metal and will even give you a nominal sum for old car wrecks – http://www.ezyscrap.com.au/

I listed my stuff on freecycle first, and got no responses. The “Free Stuff” bit of All Classifieds worked better… I also sold a mattress on there.

I would have thought that the council clean up would be called the local election?

Second Hand Sunday is a poor-man’s council cleanup, with the main limitations that the goods are only supposed to be on the nature strip on one day, it’s not always well advertised (to junk offloaders OR collectors) and that if stuff is not collected on that day there is no pickup of whatever’s left.

When I was growing up in Sydney, we always used to joke that council would book the collection contractors for at least a couple of weeks after the nominated cleanup day, to give everyone time to whittle down the amount of stuff left to collect.

Here I find Freecycle is much better, or if you think it might be sellable either Allclassifieds or the free classifieds for items under $100 in Tuesday’s Canberra Times. There is also about a column of “wanted” items in the Tuesday CT classies, which is always worth perusing in case you can offload something you haven’t yet thought of parting with (IMO).

I think it is a shame too, and too many people’s houses and yards end up full of crap because they a)can’t afford to take them it the dump, b) don’t have a trailer, c) can’t be bothered etc.

It would do a lot for the “cleanliness” of canberra if there was a council cleanup once a quarter or so.

Can we start a petition?

It’s a shame they don’t have council cleanups in Canberra. Getting rid of furniture is surprisingly difficult, especially now new furniture starts at very low prices compared with 10 years ago.

I had some stuff in good condition to get rid of, and ended up giving it away on All Classifieds but it wasn’t easy!

I notice in Qbn during the lead-up to their council cleanup days, all kinds of intriguing stuff appears on the naturestrip and people quickly help themselves, which is a really efficient system. No need to take out ads etc, just whack it out on the front lawn.

I wondered the same thing when I moved to Canberra a few years ago. It really bothers me that there isn’t an occasional council cleanup service for junk and green waste, particularly with the tiny wheelie bins.

I recommend Freecycle http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecyclecanberra/ and the freebies section on allclassifieds http://www.allclassifieds.com.au/ac/ac0001?catid=136 to pass on unwanted but still useable things. It’s worth a go – you might be surprised at how fast your gear gets snapped up! Even the things you think have no value may turn out to be just what someone else needs.

For unuseable rubbish that you can’t squeeze into that teeny weeny bin, try hiring a trashpak or mini skip. I’ve even heard of neighbours arranging a joint clean-up weekend and sharing a skip.

Hope this helps. Good luck getting rid of your stuff!

Hmm? They organised a few “Second Hand Sundays” earlier in the year. The TAMS site is here, and says that It is likely that there will be a Second-hand Sunday in spring 2009 and autumn 2010. Advertising in local newspapers will begin at least three weeks before the event.

They are called Second Hand Sunday, and there were several of them through autumn. No doubt there’ll be more in spring.

We organised a street garage sale that had 6 houses involved, and a lot of people turning up (plus we got to know some neighbours). What didn’t sell that day, we put out on the footpath the next morning for second hand Sunday, and it was all gone by the end of the day, and a nice spacious garage resulting.

But people are pretty trained to the idea now and you can just put things out at the footpath any time with a “Help yourself” sign and they will go quickly. We have used this to dispose of a lounge and dining suite recently. I figured there was more wood glue than wood holding the old dining suite together, and the cat had done horrible things to the lounge over the years, but someone else figured it was worth grabbing.

Not really. Many political promises made but if you check their website there is still no mention. http://www.tams.act.gov.au/live/Recycling_and_Waste/Residential_Waste_and_Recycling_Collection Call CanberraConnect and complain.