Illegally dumped rubbish piles up in Melbourne as locals warn city is ‘degenerating’

Melbourne residents have warned their city is “degenerating” in front of their eyes after seeing huge piles of illegally dumped rubbish on the streets of the CBD.

One local shared photos of furniture and other rubbish on Batman Street he walked past near Flagstaff Gardens at 9.30am on Wednesday, and described the city as “turd world Melbourne”.

The images show broken couches and random household waste heaped around a council sign saying “keep area clear: No dumping waste” and “penalties apply”.

Another man, David Roberts, told Noticer News the city centre seemed to be getting worse all the time, but called the situation “entirely unsurprising”.

“Every time I come to the city it has degenerated further. I saw two homeless people sleeping in Flagstaff Gardens just before this,” he said.

“The country is in freefall.”

Melbourne’s CBD has also been badly affected by dumped nitrous oxide containers, which are being illegally dumped around the city in record numbers.

A City of Melbourne spokesperson said last month council was now collecting nearly 50,000 illegally dumped cannisters each year, and said a “cross agency response” was needed.

Data released earlier this year showed that Melbourne is the epicentre of Australia’s illegal dumping epidemic, with over half complaints coming solely from Victoria.

The number of reports of illegal dumping state-wide grew by more than 2,000 in just 12 months, rising from 116,293 in 2024 to 118,653 last year – a figure that is over half the 200,000 reports received across Australia.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data showed that the outskirts of Melbourne were the areas most heavily impacted by illegal dumping, and saw huge increases in waste, especially over the last six months of 2025.

Growing anger at Melbourne’s illegal dumping problem comes after council workers in three local government areas – Darebin, Merri-bek and Hume, went on strike over wages at the beginning of April, leaving tens of thousands of bins unemptied.

Header image: The piles of rubbish on Batman St (supplied).

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