CCTV records rubbish dumpers

JULIA WADE

Mangawhai’s St John opportunity shop has again been the recipient of unwelcome waste with offenders disregarding the charity and using the store as their personal tip on multiple occasions.

St John op shop manager Frances Kennelly says since lockdown the four men were identified on CCTV using the stores skip to dump their own household rubbish.

“It’s just rude… the same young men, the same MO – dumping maggoty old rubbish in black bags and dozens and dozens of beer bottles, it was foul… they couldn’t just go and buy the rubbish and recycling bags,” she says. “They first did it during lockdown, then again when we reopened, and then yet again during the day while we were actually trading!”

A lock placed on the skip after the first dumping had been cut through with bolt cutters ‘by someone’ Kennelly says.

“I was going to give these guys the benefit of the doubt that maybe they thought it was a Northland Waste bin but, as reviewing the recorded tape, one of them glanced over to the shop deck, then I thought ‘yeah you know what you’re doing’.“

A scavenger was also caught on the loading deck rifling through donated goods but is yet to be identified.

As St John volunteers do not put food waste in the skip due to health and safety standards, the charity had to pay $100 out of raised funds to dispose of the black rubbish bags.

“I just want the four men to take responsibility for what they did,” Kennelly says. “To come forward, contact local police and make a donation to St John.”

Household rubbish, bottles, plus a number of maggots were cast into the St John skip in recent weeks, costing the charity vital funds. PHOTO/SUPPLIED