Angry residents have vented their frustration over the dumping of supermarket shopping trolleys in a waterway at a suburban park.
Photos of the abandoned trolleys were posted to a community Facebook group in Canberra on Monday.
About 20 trolleys were seen dumped in shallow water in John Knight Memorial Park in Belconnen, around 9km north-west of Canberra’s CBD.
The trolleys are understood to be from the Coles store at the nearby Westfield Belconnen shopping centre.
‘This is why we can’t have nice things,’ read the Facebook post.
‘I’m not sure if it’s about parenting, but given my kids pick up rubbish when we spot it on an outing, I’m sure there’s some sense of being raised right that avoids this stuff later on.
‘Please remember we all live here and share these spaces. It’s not on.’
Members of the group expressed their exasperation in comments.
‘Unfortunately Canberra is becoming a rubbish dump. People just don’t seem to care anymore,’ one wrote.
‘Brain cells are getting less and less common. Common sense isn’t a thing anymore,’ a second wrote.
‘So much for coin/token return!’ another wrote.
One group member had a novel punishment idea for the perpetrators.
‘It’s cause no one pulls the delinquents up or say anything. There is no punishment. Should make them swim for them and remove them all without help from others,’ one wrote.
Another had a very succinct description, ‘Nut jobs!’
The Coles Belconnen store manages its own trolley collection and conducts daily street runs, plus the trolleys have a coin lock system.
The trolleys were removed from the park on Monday.
A Coles spokesperson told Daily Mail : ‘We provide trolleys to our customers for their convenience, and spend a significant amount on maintaining them each year, which includes the cost of having teams out on the road collecting those that have been removed from our stores.
‘Abandoned trolleys are a nuisance to local communities and we are continually working to make this better across all our stores, including regular collections of abandoned trolleys with vehicles on the road.’
‘We are always reassessing our trolley management and take local feedback into account when deciding what methods to employ at any of our stores, including the use of coin locks and electronic wheel lock systems.’
The Canberra-based website Riotact reported that Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) removes around 30 shopping trolleys from waterways, lakes and ponds every month.