Do you think twice before you throw anything in the bin?
You might now, after news some wheelie bins have been fitted with a small circular device, called a Radio Frequency Identification Device or RFID tag, to collect data.
Britain has had what is referred to bin bugs for a decade already but councils around Australia are now following suit.
The hidden addition has recently been included in Sydney’s inner west after the council rolled out the initiative, and 35,ooo new wheelie bins, but other councils in Sydney have already been using the technology.
The tagging technology, while increasingly a standard feature on mobile garbage bins, can be used to identify households who contaminate their recycle bins as well as monitor collections.
It will also be able to locate bins that have gone missing.
The device is located just under the rim of the new bins.
There was some fallout in Britain when residents found out about the tagging, as they had not been informed of their existence.
At the time more than 82 per cent of people opposed putting microchips in bins, meant to encourage recycling.
There has been some concern of what happens to the data collected, and if it would, for example, identify if people were on holidays through changes in their collection.
Some counties are charged depending of the weight of their rubbish but so far councils in Australia have said they have no plans to move to a pay by weight system.
The Inner West council has uploaded a page on their website about the bins to explain what they are used for.