Victorian council under fire for rummaging through residents’ bins

A Victorian council is under fire for allegedly rummaging through resident’s rubbish bins.

The Maribyrnong Council has been criticised for checking the contents of the rubbish they’re collecting to ensure residents are recycling properly. According to numerous reports this morning, the council even leaves little notes on the bins for locals who aren’t following the correct recycling rules.

The notes, which are stuck onto the bins once the council have collected the rubbish, read: “Oh no! We ask one small favour. Please do not put recyclable items in your garbage bin”.

A council in Vic is under fire for rummaging through rubbish bins to see if residents have been recycling properly! pic.twitter.com/zxA2L0fH4d

— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) March 18, 2018

Angry residents have taken to social media to blast the council over the stunt. One person shared a photo of the note left on their bin and wrote: “What the f*** is this? Maribyrnong council is going through people’s trash to tell them off about recyclables now?”

https://twitter.com/zzap/status/953540770673303552

The label includes a picture of an angry emoji and warns people that glass and plastic bottles, cans and newspapers don’t belong in the regular bin. Instead, these items should be recycled.

It’s not just people who are putting recycled goods in their regular bin who are being targeted, with the council also scrutinising residents who put regular rubbish in their recycled bin. Another resident shared a photo stuck to their recycling bin after they put plastic bags in it.

“Oh no! We ask one small favour. Please remember not to put plastic bags in your recycling bin,” that note read. It also looked as though stuff had personally wrote on the notice, explaining that they’d found rubber bands in the bin.

The note also advised the resident not to include clothing or banana peels in their recycled bin. That furious resident wrote: “Maribyrnong council decided to have 2 staff asses everyone’s bins then tagging each bin their findings what a waste of resources and considering they don’t have a clue what to do with the recycling once they take it. Apparently we had rubber bands in ours [sic]”.

https://twitter.com/gatcon1/status/962807310518140928

Sunil Bhalla, Director Infrastructure Services, told Starts at 60 that the council announced a plan to change behaviour. “Late last year we commenced a five month campaign to change resident behaviour regarding kerbside waste and recycling,” she said. “During the Recycle Right campaign, 10,000 household recycling and waste bins will be inspected to provide insights on the common waste mistakes being made and this information will be used to better educate our residents.

“We are committed to reducing recycling contamination by 50% and increasing waste diversion to 46%. We hope that through this campaign we reinforce positive recycling behaviour. This is not about punishing households but about evaluating waste practices.”

According to Maribyrnong City Council’s Waste Minimisation Strategy for 2014-2023, Maribyrnong is one of many communities across Melbourne facing major challenges when it comes to the management of solid wastes. The report notes that Melbourne is simply running out of space when it comes to landfills, while new technologies for organic waste and recycling continue to be developed to assist with the ongoing issue.

The strategy outlines that the council had every intention of communicating waste minimisation objectives with the community in an effective manner. It also said that Maribyrnong has lower recycling rates that the average for metropolitan Melbourne, so the council needed to communicate better with residents about the issue.

What do you think? Should councils be allowed to go through your bins, even if they are doing it in the name of the environment? Is it in invasion of privacy, or are they council free to do what they like?