A council’s decision to start rating residents’ recycling habits has divided the community.
Residents of Chirnside Park in Melbourne’s northwest recently began noticing red or green strips of cardboard with the Yarra Ranges Council logo tied to their bins on collection day.
The green stripe featured a smiley face and a big “well done” along with smaller letters praising the resident for correctly sorting their trash for recycling.
‘Your container was checked today. The correct recyclable items were in your bin. Thank you for recycling correctly,’ the label said.
The red stripe had a sad face with the words in bold, large letters: ‘Please recycle correctly.’
Residents in Melbourne’s northwest discovered council workers had left labels rating their recycling efforts on bins.
An additional warning was also given in smaller print: “The items below were found in your bin and do not belong in recycling.”
The labels sparked lively debate online.
Some Australians called the move a “joke” and objected to what they called a “public shaming.”
“It’s ridiculous,” one person wrote.
But others praised the idea.
‘Yeah! “We need more of this because people throw their trash into recycling bins, contaminating truck loads,” one person said.
Chirnside Park local Linda Hall said yahoo news that even though he received a green sticker, it gave him no pleasure to see his neighbors receive a red one.
‘I felt sad for my neighbors who received red tags. I saw their faces. Some laughed, while others I could see the humiliation,” she said.
Ms Hall said “public shaming” did not seem like the right approach.
‘People do the wrong thing, which I think is wrong, but has anyone stopped to ask why? Is it possible that they made a real mistake? she said.
“I am opposed to this tactic… it is a waste of money.”
The labels sparked lively debate online; some said it was a good idea, while others condemned it as a public embarrassment.
Ms Hall pointed out that passers-by sometimes throw inappropriate rubbish in the bins and that this should not be blamed on residents.
According to Yarra Ranges Council, staff have been regularly and randomly checking and labeling green waste and recycling bins for eight years, which was carried out by a contractor.
“The inspection records any contaminating items, meaning items that are not accepted, for example soft plastic food packaging,” a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
‘If the container has no visible contamination, a green thank you label is placed on the handle.
If contaminating items are seen, an orange “please note” label is placed on the handle.
“The contractor writes on the orange label the type or types of contamination he has detected.”
The spokesperson said the labels “are purely for educational purposes and the labeled containers are still empty.”
“If a resident receives a tag when another person incorrectly places the item in their container, the resident can ignore the tag,” the spokesperson said.
‘The Council is aware of recent discussions about the program on social media.
‘However, in eight years of 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 label and how to improve their recycling behavior in the future.”
