A council’s decision to start assessing residents’ recycling habits has divided the community.
Residents of Chirnside Park in Melbourne’s northwest recently noticed red or green cardboard strips with a Yarra Ranges Council logo on their bins on collection day.
The green strip featured a smiley face and a large ‘well done’, along with smaller letters praising the resident for properly sorting their waste for recycling.
‘Your tank was checked today. The correct recyclable items were in your recycle bin. Thank you for recycling correctly,” the label read.
The red strip had a sad face with the bold words in large letters: “Please Recycle Properly.”
Residents in Melbourne’s northwest found council workers had left tags on bins rating their recycling efforts
A warning was also given in smaller letters: ‘The items below were found in your waste bin and do not belong in the recycling’.
The tags sparked a lively debate online.
Some Aussies branded the move a “joke” and objected to what they called “public shaming”.
“It’s laughable,” one person wrote.
But others praised the idea.
‘Yes! We need more of this because people are throwing their waste in their recycling bins, contaminating the cargo in the trucks,” one person said.
Chirnside Park resident Linda Hall shared Yahoo News that even though she got a green ticket, she didn’t enjoy seeing her neighbors get a red ticket.
‘I felt sadness for my neighbors who received red tickets. I saw their faces. Some laughed it off, while others could see the humiliation,” she said.
Ms Hall said ‘public shaming’ did not seem the right approach.
“People are doing the wrong thing, which I think is wrong, but has anyone asked why? Is it possible they made a real mistake?’ she said.
“I object to this tactic… it’s a waste of money.”
The tags sparked a lively debate online, with some saying it was a good idea, while others condemned it as a public shame
Ms Hall pointed out that passers-by sometimes throw inappropriate waste into the bins and this should not be blamed on residents.
According to the Yarra Ranges Council, staff have been regularly and randomly checking and labeling recycling and green waste bins for eight years, which was done by a contractor.
“The inspection records all contaminating items, i.e. items that are not accepted, for example soft plastic food packaging,” a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
‘If the bin is free of visible contamination, a green ‘thank you’ label will be placed on the handle.
If contaminating objects are seen, an orange ‘caution’ label will be placed on the handle.
‘The contactor writes on the orange label what type of contamination it has seen.’
The spokesperson said the tags are “purely for educational purposes and the tagged containers continue to be emptied.”
“If a resident receives a tag when someone else has incorrectly placed the item in the trash, the resident can ignore the tag,” the spokesperson said.
‘The municipality is aware of the recent discussions about the program on social media.
‘However, in the eight years we have been running this programme, we have received a very small number of queries or complaints.
‘In most cases, a conversation with the concerned resident has helped them understand why they received the tag and how they can improve their recycling behavior in the future.’