Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery has labelled the city's residents "feral" and "out of control" when it comes to their use of the council's household clean-up service.
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Cr Bradbery will use a Lord Mayoral minute to call for an urgent review of the twice-yearly rubbish pick-up program at Monday night's Wollongong City Council meeting, saying it has led to a proliferation of illegal dumping in the city's streets.
"The household clean-up program is out of control," Cr Bradbery said on Friday.
"People are feral in terms of their use of the program, and it requires a real rethink on how we manage it."
"This is not about illegal dumping in the bush - it is basically illegal dumping in the streets of Wollongong."
The free on-call pick-up service was introduced by council administrators in 2010, replacing the previous annual pick-up service which was offered to all residents in one area at the same time.
Now, ratepayers can book the clean-up services twice a year at times of their choosing and are then required to place household rubbish inside a two-square-metre area on the kerb the day before pick-up.
Cr Bradbery said he didn't think the new process was a bad idea, but it worked better in theory than practice as people ignored the booking process.
"People think that by just putting their rubbish out on the streets it will automatically be picked up, so I want the council to revisit how this is managed," he said.
"We see things like building waste, mattresses, e-waste and old lounge chairs dumped out on the streets and it just makes the city look so untidy and takes away from the amenity of the city.
"If it's not properly managed, it's like graffiti and quickly deteriorates into a pile that people add to and it also gets dispersed - and then it's just damn ugly."
He said he was in favour of the previous scheduled pick-up service, but was not advocating an end to on-call rubbish removals.
"I'm not pushing for this review to go either way, but I think in 2010 when this was first mooted everyone was in favour of it, and now I think people are asking if we did the right thing," he said.
"I personally liked the once-a-year pick up where you got it over and done with, and not only that - so often people came by and scavenged or recycled things."
