Piles of litter are a common sight at Buchanan Skate Park.By Nicole Williams
FAST food wrappers, soft drink bottles, coffee cups and pizza boxes are scattered throughout Buchanan Skate Park.
It is a common sight in the Berwick park but one father is fighting back, and urging the skaters to look after their park.
“Take some responsibility. It’s your park and you should look after it,” Darrin Van Der Kaay urged the young skaters.
“If you don’t respect it, you might get there one day and find council has put up a fence and you will have lost it.”
Mr Van Der Kaay occasionally takes his nine-year-old son to the skate park and spends his time picking up the litter.
“We live around the corner and he likes his scooter so we go as family,” he said.
“There is always litter there so sometimes I clean it up myself.”
“Probably what is the most disturbing is that they don’t seem to mind just skating around in their own filth. What is it or how can we make the youth of today respect our environment and these beautiful facilities provided to them?”
Mr Van Der Kaay was driving past the skate park on Sunday when he saw the piles of litter and decided to take a stand, stopping to take photos of the rubbish.
“Usually I would just clean it but I would have been there all day. I just couldn’t turn a blind eye to it.”
Mr Van Der Kaay said the rubbish surrounded council provided bins, which sit empty.
“There are bins there but the bins are empty,” he said.
“This is a ratepayer-funded skate park that has been provided to the young people of Berwick and this is the way the youth of today treat it, and that is with no respect, considering there have been bins provided.”
Mr Van Dey Kaay said council might need to clean the area more regularly but it shouldn’t be happening at all.
“On the weekends, council doesn’t get there,” he said.
“It shouldn’t be up to council, it should be up to the individual.”
A City of Casey Council spokesman advised they were unable to meet the Gazette deadline for comment.
