Councils around Australia and the world are coming up with increasingly novel ways to get citizens to clean up their recycle bin. Some reward based, some shame based and others as just back to a plain old beating.
South Australia are Australian recycle royalty, followed by Victoria. There are a number of excellent initiatives under their Zero Waste Programs (established in 2004) and Bin Tagging is one. It's a feedback system, but it has proven to be very effective in cleaning up recycle bins. Essentially, a team conducts a series of fortnightly inspections of waste and recycling or organics bins in randomly selected streets. (Adelaide has bins for food waste as well.) Each visit involves a visual inspection of the top 30cm of bin contents when the bins are on the kerb for collection.Bins are inspected three to four times and feedback is provided to residents on the way they recycle in the form of one of the following tags attached to bin handles:
Bin tagging trials have shown impressive changes in the way participants recycle, including a reduction of up to 66% in the number of contaminated recycling bins, and increased recycling rates of up to 43% after just six recycling collections.Councils in Western Australia like WALGA and Cottesloe have modelled a bin audit and education program on the South Australian program.
Dedicated Waste Officers in Canterbury Bankstown Council in Sydney are actually inspecting randomly selected recycle bins set out for collection. If the correct items are in the bin, the owner receives a green tag, which entitles them to go in the draw for a shopping voucher. If the bin contains non-recyclables, the owner receives a orange or red tag and is directed to remove the rubbish before collection.
Possibly my fav for a gutsy manoeuvre is the Mindarie Regional Council in WA who are currently running a trial across 20 households for 8 weeks, making rubbish bins transparent. The council has set a target of 65% of waste in recycle bins by 2020 and 'clearly' feels that they move to transparent bins will make people think more about what they put in their bins.
Public opinion is polarised at the moment, running from, "How stupid" to all kinds of opinions on neighbourhood drinking habits. Council is hoping that it will make people think more about what they put in their bins and even encourage neighbours to check in and ask those who have small rubbish levels, how they do it. (Presumably instead of just adding their extra waste to your bin.)Results across many councils with combinations of incentive programs and education show how possible it is to get rates down from highs like the Queensland Ipswich council of 54% in April 2018.