Back in September 2014 Public Transport Victoria removed rubbish bins from Melbourne’s railway stations due to the “increased terror alert level”. So where has all of the rubbish ended up?
Most of the time it just ends up on the platform, with lazy slobs leaving their rubbish wherever it falls.
As a result, cleaners have to do the rounds more often to clean up after litterbugs.
At least some people try to take their rubbish with them – resulting in rubbish bins outside railway stations overflowing with coffee cups before 9am.
As for the redundant rubbish bins, they were locked up in a cage outside Flinders Street Station for a number of months before they disappeared – sent away to Guantanamo Bay?
Footnote
I reckon you can group people into three categories:
- Filthy slobs who throw crap on the ground even if there is a rubbish bin right next to them,
- The pragmatic, who put their rubbish in the bin assuming they can find one,
- And finally the idealistic, who when presented with a lack of bins, take their rubbish home with them
My desk at work currently has a pile of used tea bags and banana skins to take home for the compost bin, so you can guess into which group I fall!
February 2015 update
The bins are still missing, but the City of Melbourne has picked up some of the slack – they have started to place extra rubbish bins outside CBD railway stations, ready for the morning barrage of takeaway coffee cups.
March 2015 update
New rubbish bins have now appeared across the network – still see-through like before, but now without anything to keep the bag in place.
If they do something stupid like removing the bins what do they expect will happen?
Presumably management only needs to look like they are doing something about ‘terrorism’ – so they don’t have to worry about the consequences.
I think the majority of people are pragmatic and will look for and use a rubbish bin, but equally, if the bins are taken away, some people see it as a ‘punishment’ to the business responsible for the removal if they drop their rubbish where the bin was, or leave it somewhere on the property.
It’s the same kind of rebellion behind “my train is late so I why should I buy a ticket” but on a smaller scale.
If they want “Security theatre”, then let them have it. My occasional act leaving non-portable rubbish where bins have been idiotically removed, is a deliberative artistic and cultural statement.
The winner in the end is presumably the company with the cleaning contract – they have a habit of paying their subcontracted staff below minimum wage.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/dirty-work-in-the-cleaning-industry-20130828-2sqtm.html
[…] back in September 2014 how rubbish bins were removed from Melbourne’s railway stations due to security […]
[…] But the milk and parcels are gone – replaced by a pile of rubbish bins removed to fight terrorism. […]
[…] At least the seats that served the now-closed fast food outlets still exist – but with seagulls picking through abandoned fast food wrappers, after the rubbish bins were removed a decade ago. […]