Council recently received $124 430 from the state government’s $465 million Waste Less, Recycle More program and will use the money to clean up retail strips in the two townships. 

Kiama Municipal Council waste management officer Josephine St John said Railway Parade in Kiama and Fern Street in Gerringong had been identified as streets which would benefit from the he funding. 

‘‘We identified the two streets as litter hot spots which we had to do to apply for the grant, Railway Parade, particularly the area in front of the library was identified due to it’s proximity to food outlets and the train station, people would stop to eat then head to the train and leave their rubbish there,’’ Ms St John said.

‘‘Fern Street was identified as we were seeing a lot of cigarette butts that were being generated by the general public and also the retailers.’’

Ms St John said that part of the money would be used to install new bin enclosures along the two streets and to run an education programs about them. 

‘‘One of the things we realised in Fern Street is that only one of the bins had an integrated ash tray in them, so we’re replacing the bins along Fern Street with six new enclosures that will all have ash trays and will have both a waste and recycling bin in them. 

‘‘We’ll also be putting one of those enclosures on Railway Parade and once they’re installed we’ll be running an education campaign so that everybody knows they’re there and there’s no excuse to litter.’’

Part of the funding has also been ear-marked by the council to help purchase a footpath street-sweeper. 

‘‘In a lot of our streetscapes we have gardens and and angled park which make it harder for our bigger street-sweeper to reach some places, so the smaller sweeper will allow our cleaning staff to do a better job cleaning our streets.’’