Street cleaning

Street sweeping occurs using mechanical and manual processes, every four weeks in residential areas, and daily in commercial zones. These services run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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Weekly residential street cleaning schedule

Our streets are cleaned based on a regular, scheduled program by our Street and Beach Services team.

View our current Residential Cleaning Schedule 26 September to 29 September 2023 (PDF 1.7 MB)

Council collects all dumped rubbish reported to us. We run a proactive service in hot-spot areas to manage the impacts of illegally dumped rubbish. Waste Management and Local Laws officers work together to investigate offences and deliver targeted education to prevent them from occurring.

We remove around 50 to 60 tonnes of dumped waste from our streets each month, including an average of 360 mattresses, and recycle about 70 per cent of all material collected. The Waste Management team actions over 5,900 reports of dumped rubbish every year, ranging from discarded furniture to mattresses and fridges, and collect around 50 tonnes of illegally dumped waste every month.

Dumping of rubbish is illegal in the city of Port Phillip and can result in on-spot fines of $660 or up to $9,900.

To report dumped rubbish, contact us via My Port Phillip or with Snap Send Solve.

Council offers a free hard rubbish collection service to residents. To avoid penalties, make sure to book a collection before putting out any hard rubbish.

Help us identify an offender

Collecting dumped rubbish is a significant cost to Council. When the person who dumped the rubbish is identified, we can try to recover the cost. Council wants your assistance to identify people. With your support, we can find those responsible, reduce costs and improve our streets.

If you have any information that may help us identify illegal dumpers, we’d like to hear from you on 03 9209 6777.

Litter

Litter damages the environment and hurts our wildlife. Littering is also an offence which can attract possible fines from $300 to over $9,000.

You can report litterers by completing an Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) litter report form. You can access the EPA litter form online, or by phoning 1300 372 842 or pick-up one from any City of Port Phillip Town Hall.

Hazardous waste (syringes and condoms)

Syringes

Visit syringes for detailed information about:

  • syringe collection and disposal.
  • what to do if you find discarded syringes.
  • needlestick injuries.
  • council awareness program.

Condoms (discarded)

If you find a used condom on our streets or beaches please contact us to report it and request clean-up.

Abandoned shopping trolleys

Council doesn't collect abandoned trolleys, but you can report them for collection to the relevant owners.

Coles trolley collections
Phone: 1800 876 553
Email: customer.relations@coles.com.au
Report online: Coles Abandoned Trolley service.

ALDI trolley collections
Phone: 13 25 34

Other retailers (such as Woolworths, Big W, Dan Murphy’s)
Phone: 1800 641 497
Email: info@trolleytracker.com.au
Report online: Trolley Tracker

Leaf removal program

Due to changing weather conditions, our leaf removal schedule changes weekly. Schedules and maps are updated each Monday on our website.

For details of seasonal scheduled cleaning including high-impact areas, download the Street Sweeping Leaf Season Program (PDF 2 MB).

To meet the demands of the workload this year existing shifts have been:

  • extended
  • additional shifts implemented
  • resources increased to ensure our current four-week cleaning cycle continues
  • high impact zones prioritised to receive fortnightly cleans throughout the season.

All other streets will be cleaned once every four weeks, with areas deemed critical or at risk responded to immediately.

Leaf season

'Leaf Season' as it's known by the Street and Beach team is the busy time of year when they must clean leaf fall from roughly 32,500 trees along 530 streets in our City.

Although weather conditions can cause leaf fall as early as February, the past seven years of data indicate leaf season typically occurs within a seven to nine-week window from late April to mid-July.

During leaf season, the Street and Beach team receive 10 times the usual volume of customer requests, mostly around leaf cleaning in Elwood, St Kilda, Middle Park, Albert Park, Port Melbourne and Ripponlea where 95 streets are classified as 'high impact zones' for leaf fall.

During last year’s leaf season, six sweeper trucks averaged 20 truckloads of material collected per day, with total material collected over the season exceeding 1,530 truckloads.

This equates to 9,180 cubic metres of leaves - or enough to fill three and a half Olympic sized swimming pools. Last year’s collection data also confirmed a 21 per cent increase on the previous year.

Heavy leaf fall is seasonal and temporary. Our program aims to provide a better result for residents living on streets and roads affected by full canopy coverage. All attempts will continue to be made to remove leaf debris across all precincts as quickly as possible.