When the issue of rubbish was raised at VCAT, it was a ruling to extend the daily cleanup zone to be 200 metres from the store. One month in and it is evident that this clearly wasn’t far enough as rubbish has been littering up and down Burwood Highway and plaguing commuters at Tecoma station.
The rubbish focus is on the main roads and thoroughfares, with minimal rubbish turning up in smaller side streets. Unfortunately these roads often wind through our national parks. Public transport shelters at bus stops and the train stations are also hotspots. Both these observations give weight to the argument that it is most definitely NOT locals frequenting this business.
Thank you to everyone that has collected over the past month. What we have shown is that these types of “industrial food processing plants” have a waste generation capacity up to 4km away (to date) which should be taken into account when making planning approvals close to national parks and areas of significant environmental value to tourists and endemic animal species.
We plan to keep up the collection of this data so Tecoma can be used as an example by other community’s as what detrimental affect a drivethru has on the surrounding area.

What you can do?
-Take a photo of any rubbish and record the approximate location (your phone can give you accurate co-ordinates) or just record the location you can smell the “odour”.
-Collect the rubbish to return to the store or bin it yourself.
-Email the photo of the rubbish and the location to mcrubbishinthehills@gmail.com or send it to 0411 079 064.

Here’s an article from this week’s Free Press Leader. Great to see that the media has picked up on the anti-social trolling that this campaign too many times has had to deal with. Over the ANZAC day weekend we posted that the “trolls” had crossed the line of decency in a misguided attempt to demonise one of the biggest grassroots democratic campaigns in Australia at the expense of the Upwey RSL. As we have already mentioned in previous posts that the RSL knew it to be an unsubstantiated rumour and our campaign quickly denied that any boycott of the dawn service was planned. Of course the dawn service went off without a hitch and it was great to see so many from our community supporting this important day.
For the handful of anti-social misfits who think that such behaviour is acceptable we point out that it didn’t take too long for local media to make inquiries that resulted in the truth coming out.
Thanks to all who supported the campaign over this issue and the many positive posts we received in bringing this stupid and bullying behaviour to light.

Former hills resident and campaign supporter Tom Fairman made this post over on No Maccas in the Hills. We are reposting it here with his permission as he raises some interesting points from the linked article.

I thought the below article was a good analysis of development arguments. While not entirely related to the Maccas issue – they’re talking more about resource development – it does talk about what “good” decision making is with development issues. And I’d easily say the McDonalds in Tecoma showed themselves to fail on all accounts. Have a read!
“An unfair process is one where a decision is imposed on a community. When this happens, communities become resentful, relationships are strained, and divisions appear. Introducing a community consultation process after a decision has been made, as seems to have been the case with the Uriarra solar farm, is akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The damage has been done and people feel insulted. Governments and corporations should not make decisions behind closed doors, even if they are “apparent decisions”, and still expect to bring the community with them.”
http://theconversation.com/calling-people-nimbys-wont-stop-development-arguments-25715