Rubbish man gutted
Henry the rubbish man was torn apart on Saturday night
After The Morning Bulletin on Friday highlighted Des Covey's efforts to clean up a section of the Capricorn Highway by packing litter into orange overalls to create rubbish men, someone disembowelled one of the creations.
It was no way to say thank-you to the Gracemere engineering contractor who braves the blazing sun on the road between Rockhampton and Gracemere in his spare time, collecting rubbish.
One of his creations named Henry was sitting alongside the highway on Friday night, when vandals attacked.
By morning Henry had been torn apart, leaving a pile of rubbish sitting around him.
Rockhampton couple Noelene and Phil Smith were appalled to see Des's hard work gone to waste.
“It's disgusting,” Noelene said.
“Somebody's out there trying to do good for the community and then someone just goes out and deliberately destroys it. We just want to encourage (Des) to keep up the good work.”
The couple said they couldn't understand why someone would do something so deliberately destructive.
“We don't know Des but it was really good to see the article and see what he's doing,” Phil said.
“I was a bit concerned on the weekend to see that it looked like it had been shredded and someone had undone his good work. Instead of destroying something they should do something constructive.”
Don Close, of Close Constructions said the people responsible should be found and punished.
“I think it's despicable,” Don said.
“Someone, out of the kindness of their heart, is doing the clean-up like he is and he's doing a tremendous job. It's really good to see how clean he's got the highway looking. It's really disappointing to see that someone can just come along and wilfully destroy his work. They should be found and made to clean up another street.”
Don was glad, however, to see someone had stopped on Saturday to clean up the mess.
“There were two vehicles and they looked as though they must have seen the rubbish and come back to clean it up,” he said.
Don said he hoped it didn't discourage Des from continuing his good work.
Des did not want to comment further on the situation, for fear of further repercussions.