Monash Street Sweepers help goats’ big scratch for sustainability

The animal kingdom loves a good scratch.

Whether it’s a puppy that’s found just the right spot behind its ear, sending tail and hind leg into spasms of bliss, or a satisfied dinner guest after a yawn and a stretch following a hefty Sunday roast - there’s nothing like it.

And it seems goats are no different.

Recently, Mount Waverley born-and-bred Leanne Neal stumbled across the unlikely idea of combining her goats' love of a darn, good scratch with an important recycling/sustainability outcome by repurposing discarded circular blue plastic brushes from Council’s mechanical street sweeper fleet. Fixed to a cyclone wire fence, they make the perfect goat scratching posts.

“I saw it on the internet, I’m not sure where, but I loved the idea,” she said. “When it worked for the goats, I wondered whether it would work for the sheep and the cows.”

Originally hailing from Mount Waverley – a student at Essex Heights Primary School and Syndal Tech – Leanne now calls the small Gippsland town of Alberton home, sharing a couple of acres with her goats, sheep, ducks and chickens. But she still maintains her links to Monash, coming back to visit her mum in the family home from time to time.

“We’re on a dirt road (at Alberton) so we don't have a street sweeper,” Leanne said. “I was in Mount Waverley one day and it crossed my mind to email Monash Council and see if they had any brushes.

“I emailed (former Council Zero Waste Champion) Caitlyn (Socwell) just through the Monash Council website. Caitlyn was great. She told me she'd check on availability, thought it was an interesting request and said she'd get back to me - which she did within a week or two.

“(Recycling and Waste Centre Team Leader) Theo (Kirizakis) was really helpful and, after collecting the first lot of brushes, when I rang to get some more he said he'd send through a photo of what was available. Everyone has been great to deal with and you've all made this a fun experience.”

The plastic brushes, once installed in the cyclone wire fence on Leanne’s Alberton property, were a near-instant hit.

“They (the goats) absolutely love it. I wasn’t sure how they’d go,” she said. “I must admit, I did have to do a demonstration to explain it to them. My husband was watching and thought I was crazy. And, trust me, there’s no photos of that!

“But the goats learned quickly and started scratching between their horns. Goats love to scratch, normally they rub across the cyclone wire fence and leave hair all the way along. (But now) a couple of times or more a day they walk past (the brushes) and have a scratch.”

Leanne’s sheep, however, are proving to be slightly slower learners – but she remains hopeful.

“The sheep still think it’s something to eat,” she laughed. “But they’ll get there.”

As well as the circular brushes, Leanne has fixed longer cylindrical rollers from the Monash sweeper fleet to the ground with star pickets, satisfying the goats’ other great passion – headbutting things.

“If they can knock something over, they will,” Leanne said. “They love the rollers. They give them a headbutt then have a scratch. The goats think these new, long brushes are awesome.”

And word is starting to spread.

Leanne recently sent a couple of brushes off to a friend who has horses, while another friend is very interested in trying them in the dairy with her cows.

“Thanks again, you are making a lot of animals very happy,” she said.

 Caitlyn Socwell said she was excited when she first received Leanne’s quirky request.

“It’s always a shame to send something to landfill, so any time I get to see something repurposed, I sleep a bit better at night,” she said. “As soon as I came across Leanne’s request, I was thrilled at such a fun idea and got to work right away liaising with the amazing team at the Recycling and Waste Centre.

“It’s never been more important to showcase the positive actions our community members are having on their community.”

Travis, Shane, Andrew and Theo at the Monash Recycling and Waste Centre have now added ‘scratching post spotters’ to their duties, keeping Leanne informed whenever new brushes and rollers from Council’s mechanical street sweeper fleet become available.

Using mechanical street sweepers, Council teams sweep residential streets, on average, once every five weeks, and major shopping strips and activity centres six days a week. Street sweeping helps keep Monash clean and prevents waste entering drains and polluting waterways and oceans. Every year, we clean about 3000 tonnes of leaf litter and other material from our streets.

Repurposing old sweeper brushes is just one small example of a creative way to extend the life of the items we use. The Sustainable Monash team is here to support the Monash community to embrace a circular economy where items are reused, repurposed, or repaired rather than sent to landfill.

Learn, share and collaborate by connecting to the Sustainable Monash e-news.