Georges River Council is rolling out a bin tagging program to help educate residents on how to use their waste bins correctly. Doing this helps us recover more resources and reduces items being sent to landfill. It also saves ratepayers money.
The bin tagging program is simple. Streets are randomly selected, and bin inspectors look at the materials in the yellow-lidded recycling bins and green-lidded garden organics bins. Then they leave an educational tag on the inspected bin.
The tags provide specific feedback on the contents of the yellow-lidded recycling bins and green-lidded garden organics bins as well as some general guidance on what can and can’t be recycled or included as organic waste. Essentially, the green tag means ‘Great work – thanks for using your bins correctly!’ and the red tag means ‘there’s room for improvement’.
In addition, anonymous data will be collected to track how we are using our waste bins and if we are improving as we progress. A previous waste audit revealed that household recycling had an average contamination rate of 32.6%. This rate is unacceptably high and could risk the waste material being unusable by recycling processors.
Residents should also be aware that bins which are too contaminated are marked with a warning sticker and may not be collected until the incorrect material, or contamination, has been removed from the bin.
Mayor of Georges River, Nick Katris said, “Encouraging householders to separate waste into the correct bin is a significant challenge for waste management staff. Bin tagging programs have been successfully trialled and implemented in other parts of Australia, so now it’s time for our community to improve our waste efforts and ‘recycle right’.”
“Residents should welcome this Council initiative because knowing how to use bins correctly means less waste in landfill and we reduce waste disposal costs. The higher the contamination rates are, the higher the cost for recycling services. This also applies to organic waste. So, I look forward to seeing great improvements.”
