Mica Creek resident Katreana Cunningham said the area always seemed to have been a dumping ground.

Even a stack of woodchips and piles of dead branches were a blight on the scenery. 

“This is a nice spot so when you get people dropping their rubbish, it ruins the atmosphere,” Mrs Cunningham said.

“I did have a good talk to council and they are being fairly proactive as to their course of action.” 

To demonstrate the attitude of these dumpers, she points out a metal pole stuck into the ground that remained there for several years. 

“Council put a camera there. Someone cut it off,” she said. The camera had not lasted long, she said. 

Because the rubbish piles were upstream it seemed to be “out of sight, out of mind”. Across the other side of the river, off Duchess Road, are other piles of rubbish hidden in the scrub. 

Mrs Cunningham lives on the other side of the city to the dump, and she finds the effort to dispose her garbage properly. 

“I pay my rates, I get my tokens and when I don’t have tokens left I pay like everyone should be doing,” she said.

“It just disappoints me that we have got a lovely environment for people to enjoy and someone has no regard for it and dumps their rubbish.” 

Mount Isa mayor Joyce McCulloch said the council collects more than 35 tonnes of rubbish a year. Illegal dumping costs “hundreds of thousands of dollars” annually.   

“While this demonstrates council’s commitment to keeping our city clean, it also highlights that there are still too many people illegally dumping rubbish in our city and effectively passing the responsibility of deposing their waste onto someone else.

“We have had cases where local businesses are avoiding the official refuse facility and regularly dumping large amounts of waste, often near creeks and recreational areas that the community is trying to enjoy,” Councillor McCulloch said. 

“Each household is entitled to six free visits to the refuse facility per year, and given that our facility is one of the cheapest to visit in the state, I see no excuse as to why we continue to battle illegal dumping.”

Mount Isa residents are now able to report illegal dumping anonymously by filling out an online form on the Council website.

For more information about Council’s waste and recycling services or to report dumped rubbish visit the council website.