A Western Sydney council has devised an innovative solution to reduce the dumping of shopping trolleys across its jurisdiction.
Liverpool City Council is considering supplying two-wheeler shopping trolleys to eligible residents at nominal cost.
LCC Deputy Mayor Peter Harle – a long-time campaigner against the scourge of dumped trolleys – said it was hoped that if more residents had use of personal trolleys to ferry shopping to and fro, they’d refrain from borrowing the supermarkets’.
“While the law places responsibility for trolleys fair and square at the supermarkets, council is left with the problem and so council has come up with a solution,” he said.
The plan is to offer 500 of so-called “granny trolleys” to the city’s seniors and residents without access to private transport. “In some ways it’s an old-fashioned solution to a modern problem,” Harle said. “Years ago, every home had its own shopping trolley and by going ‘back to the future’ we can probably find a commonsense solution to a massive problem.”
In the last two months, Liverpool City Council has impounded nearly 1,200 trolleys, most of which have been collected by the supermarkets who were charged $46.30 a trolley.
Abandoned shopping trolleys are an all-too common sight across NSW. Data from Snap Send Solve reported 9,506 trolleys dumped across the state last year alone.
LCC intends to write to NSW MPs to seek support for subsidising a statewide scheme. “All councils are left with a trolley mess and if personal trolleys for residents cuts the number of dumped trolleys, then everyone wins. It’s a classic circular economy solution to a massive environmental problem,” Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun said.
Liverpool City Council is planning another trolley blitz in May and this time fines will be bumped up to $1,320 a trolley.
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