“Bin tagging” is the less invasive auditing process taking place this week around the Tamworth region, ensuring residents are adequately and effectively recycling.
Manager Waste and Resource Recovery at Tamworth Regional Council (TRC), Morne Hattingh said its not a “full blown audit”.
“It’s just a bin tagging program we are carrying out. Bin auditing is when you remove the complete contents from the bin and you analyse it and separate it into categories,” he said.
“Bin tagging is just lifting the lid, a visual observation of what’s inside the bins, see if there are any contaminants and then placing an incentive tag on the bin,” said Mr Hattingh.
TRC, in conjunction with Cleanaway, are urging residents not to be concerned if someone is having a look in your bin and placing a tag on top.
The tags come in three different colours, highlighting three different “contamination” ratings: Blue coloured tags will be placed on bins which are doing an “A+ job”. Orange tags are designed to show mild levels of contamination, and red tags highlight certain bins that are severely contaminated and “can’t be serviced”.
“The intention is just to get an observation of what type of contaminants are in the bin, the yellow bin specifically,” said Mr Hattingh.
TRC have reported a significant struggle with hydrocarbon, grass clippings and nappies being placed into yellow bins. Hydrocarbon waste includes liquids, soils and sludges contaminated by a wide range of hydrocarbon contaminants, such as lubricating oils, diesel fuels, . For example, dirty pizza boxes cannot be recycled. In Tamworth, this waste should go into the red bin.
“We target our community education based on the information that we get from auditing and bin tagging sections of Tamworth,” Mr Hattingh said.
“We get our information from the kerbside collection contract drivers. The new fleet of trucks have the ability to look into the bins whilst they’re being serviced, so we can get a very good understanding of where bins are contaminated”.
“We are in a situation now where any form of contamination in yellow bins means we are severely penalised by processers in this space. Our recycling gets processed out of Tamworth and those processes charge a heavy fee for any form of contamination,”
“So, we are financially incentivised to improve our contamination levels”.
Residents who are doing an A+ Job at recycling and separation will receive a blue tag and a chance to enter the draw to win a $100 Stay Region, Shop Regional voucher.
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