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Council’s bid to bring an end to abandoned trolleys

Council’s bid to bring an end to abandoned trolleys

The City of Marion is saying enough is enough when it comes to shopping trolleys being taken away from shopping centres and abandoned on our streets. Our council area contains the Westfield Marion and Vicinity owned Castle Plaza shopping centres, and the suburbs around those centres are becoming dumping grounds for shopping trolleys. The proximity of Oaklands train station to Marion shopping centre also causes trolleys to be dumped on and around the platform as shoppers take their shopping and catch a train.

Other than being an eyesore in our streets, this pollution is an environmental and financial issue. Council is spending thousands of dollars collecting the trolleys abandoned on streets and reserves, storing them and returning them to the shopping centre.

Trolleys are the property and responsibility of the stores that issue them. The measures they currently take to retrieve trolleys is making phone numbers or apps available to report abandoned trolleys, with the view that they will be collected soon after. Council and residents are reporting the time taken to retrieve a trolley can be over a week which is considered unacceptable.

Council, residents and the retailers need to work together to tackle this problem and reduce the number of trolleys on our streets.

 

Action for the City of Marion

Strategies that council are exploring are:

  • Arranging foldable shopping carts for sale at a reduced price to residents who live within walking distance of shopping centres.

  • Ensuring that those residents eligible to use the community bus to get to and from shopping centres are doing so and not taking trolleys home.

Action for Retailers

Council is encouraging retailers to explore these strategies:

  • Providing a trolley return at Oaklands Station that is emptied daily.

  • Introducing trolleys that have a locking mechanism that activates once a trolley moves off the shopping centre property.

  • Introducing trolleys that require $1 or $2 coins to be inserted (which is returned once the trolley is back in the trolley return).

  • Decreased waiting times for the collection of reported abandoned trolleys.

Actions for Residents

We ask residents to:

  • Report abandoned trolleys that you see out in the community. Woolworths (Big W and Dan Murhy’s) us a free app called Trolley Tracker that allows you to pinpoint the location of a trolley to be collected on a map. Coles and Kmart have the ability to report a trolley within their own app and all stores provide phone numbers for the reporting of abandoned-trolleys. All details are available here: https://www.marion.sa.gov.au/services-we-offer/abandoned-trolleys.

  • If walking or catching public transport to a shopping centre consider using a foldable shopping cart. These have the advantage that they can be wheeled onto trains and buses and used on the trip from the station to your home.

  • Return trolleys to shopping centres.