One man’s trash
Host: Kilcowera Station
Written by Toni Sherwin, Station Owner
Kilcowera is a working cattle station that offers accommodation, camping and guided tours.
I guess city people never give a thought as to how we get rid of our rubbish? The ways are many and varied. And you know something that really annoys me? Some mail days I empty the mail bag and go through the mail only to find that 75% of it goes straight in the bin. And packaging of some products produces more rubbish than useable product and we have to get rid of it somehow.
Our rubbish get sorted up 2 ways – what we can burn and what we can’t. Of the household rubbish the only stuff that doesn’t get burnt is soft drink cans, beer cans and bottles and wine bottles. All other tins like baked beans and food tins and plastics need to be burnt to take the food smell out of them so the stock don’t sniff them out and get them stuck on their jaws. It’s a very sad sight to see a beast or sheep with a tin stuck to its lower jaw as they can’t eat or drink and usually die because we would probably not see the animal unless it’s happens to hang around a stock water. Even if we do see the poor thing it may be too far from a yard to get it to. So please don’t throw your rubbish out when you are camping in the outback. I have seen a brown snake slithering along blindly with a VB can stuck over its head.
We have 5 dumps on Kilcowera – just as well we’ve got plenty of room! Greg digs a big pit with the dozer for the aforementioned beer cans and harmless rubbish to be put into. The only problem with this is birds pick up some of the cans and fly around with them and drop them all over the place or whirly winds come along and scatter the cans too!
Gregs’ wire dump.
This is a picture of Greg’s wire dump where all reusable wire and steel posts are lined up. Depending on how financial we are there is always a supply of new plain and barbed wire, posts, weldmesh, droppers and steel cable here too and it all has to be kept off the ground as steel rusts fairly quickly when it is in contact with our soil.
The most interesting dump is the one where anything that might be handy for something gets put. There is a line up of old washing machines, dog kennels, batteries, tyres, interesting pieces of steel, old bottles, chains, fish tanks, old rain water tanks and wooden fence posts. About every 10 years or so someone comes along and wants to buy stuff out of the dump… batteries, copper wire, bits and pieces off old cars, aluminium cans. There are also such things as bathtubs, basins, old frypans, partially used lengths of poly pipe and drums of all shapes and sizes. We recycle lots of stuff!
The ever so useful dump.
The previous owners had a dump like this too, some of the stuff there is pretty old but not so old as to be valuable. There are tractor seats, horse floats, beds, engines, woolpresses, wheel barrows, old toys, horseshoes and a dazzling array of little bits of steel like chains, nuts and bolts, locks etc. They also had another dump right near the Shearers Quarters where they lived. Unfortunately though they did not dig a pit but simply and with gay abandon threw everything onto this ever expanding pile. The pile is basically in the creek so whenever the creek runs so does the rubbish, pilsener stubbies and longnecks mainly – straight down toward our lagoon.
If you can’t find it here you don’t need it.
The next door neighbours place sold to a new owner 10 or so years ago and we went to the clearing sale and the very last thing to be auctioned was the contents of the dump! It really brings new meaning to “One mans rubbish is another’s treasure”.
Driving to town one day I was sailing past a local station when out of the corner of my eye I noticed something big and new on their dump. A great big white Toyota trayback on it’s roof! It had been rolled and the owners had dragged it there and just left it, along with quite a few other old cars. The dump is very close to the road and a bit of an eyesore.
Another neighbour to the south has his main dump right along side the road that you drive on to get to the house. The dump goes on and on and on. I would love to have a scrounge around there ( I suspect Greg would too! ). Bad form to go sticky beaking around though if there’s any chance you’ll get sprung!
Everything including the bathroom sink.