Graffiti on agenda
Saturday, 17 September 2005

KEEP Australia Beautiful Victoria has called on the paint industry to do more to stamp out graffiti.
The environmental organisation is asking suppliers of aerosol spray paint to take greater responsibility for how their products are used.

CEO Andrew McLorinan said the paint industry should adopt extended producer responsibility.

This refers to producers either physically or financially being involved in cleaning up any damage caused by consumers using their products.

Mr McLorinan said the organisation suggested five proposals for the paint industry to adopt:

providing lockable storage facilities to prevent shoplifting of spray-paint cans;

funding a statewide graffiti reporting hotline;

funding graffiti clean-ups across the state;

supporting KABV calls for a ban on the sale of aerosol spray-paint cans to people under 18; and


supporting KABV calls for State Government agencies to clean graffiti off their infrastructure within 24 hours of a report.

Mr McLorinan said all these proposals would need to be adopted to reduce graffiti.

"Everyone who looks at the graffiti problem says there's no `silver bullet' solution.

"Bendigo paint retailers said they had already adopted parts of KABV's plan.

Haymes PaintRight manager Kevin Isaacs said his store had a very stringent policy on selling spray-paint cans.

"We won't sell them to anyone under 18, or anyone that looks suspect - you can generally gauge what people are going to use them for.

"We have them in a strategic location, where people can't access them without a member of staff.

"I'd say the industry's very much aware of their responsibilities about the sale of aerosol spray cans."

Mr Isaacs said the amount of graffiti in the Bendigo region had decreased during the past few years.

"You still get isolated incidents, but there hasn't been the disfiguration of buildings that there used to be.

Bristol Paints owner Peter Tyack agreed that graffiti had decreased in prevalence.

"It was getting out of control five to six years ago, but it's settled down a bit now."


Mr Tyack supported the age limit for buying aerosol cans, but said it would not totally stamp out graffiti.

"There are people in Melbourne aged between 18 and 22 tagging buses and trains."

Mr Tyack said he was more concerned with people smashing windows of businesses, having had three of his windows broken in the past four weeks.

The City of Greater Bendigo's acting director of infrastructure services, Geoff Maguire, said the council was in favour of KABV's plan.

"We are faced with a problem that obviously costs the community."

The city's CEO, John McLean, said the whole community would need to find solutions to stop graffiti.

He also hoped creative channels for the talent many graffiti artists showed could be found.