Expression of Interest
Changing Behaviour to Increase Recycling
WALGA has received funding from the Waste Authority to implement a community
engagement and enforcement Program that increases the recycling rate from kerbside
collections and reduces contamination.
This Program will assist Local Government to meet the State Waste Strategy targets for
diversion of municipal waste from landfill (Metropolitan area 50%, and 30% for Regional
Centres by 2015). The Program will also assist Local Government to save money. With
increasing disposal costs and recycling contractors considering introducing penalty rates
for highly contaminated recycling, this is the time to act to reduce contamination and save
money.
WALGA is seeking to partner with three Local Governments in the Perth metropolitan
area, to trial the South Australian ‘Big Tagging Program.’ This Program is credited with
decreasing the contamination of recycling bins by 60% in South Australia.
To register your interest in taking part in this Program, please complete this Expression of
Interest and return it to Heather Squire, Waste Policy Coordinator by COB Friday, 10
October.
If your Local Government’s Expression of Interest is accepted, an MOU between WALGA
and your Local Government must be signed which commits both organisation to the
program conditions outlined in this document.
Name: __________________________________
Position: ________________________________
Local Government: __________________________
Signature: _______________________________
Date: ___________________________________
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What does the Bin Tagging Program entail?
The Bin Tagging Program uses a combination of information provision, enforcement and
incentives to encourage residents to change their behaviour. Information provision alone
does not change resident behaviour. But through the combination of information provision,
enforcement and incentives, the Bin Tagging Program in South Australia has significantly
reduced contamination in recycling bins, and increased recycling over a sustained period
of time.
The following steps comprise of a short summary of the process that will be followed in
your Local Government area, if you are selected to take part of the Bin Tagging Trial.
Step 1: Undertake a baseline visual audit of recycling and general waste bins in the target
areas. The visual audit is essentially a simple ‘lift the bin lid’ type inspection. This first step
is to determine what the current level and type of contamination is in the area. This will
allow the success of the Program to be measured effectively. Residents will also receive a
tag on their bin that introduces the Bin Tagging program.
Step 2: For the following two fortnights, visual audits are again completed, with
households provided with feedback on their performance via ‘tags’ attached to the
recycling and waste bin handles. Based on the South Australian results, the majority of
households will improve their separation behaviour when they receive this information.
However, a small percentage of households will require further encouragement. In this
instance, the following steps are recommended.
Step 3: For the fourth audit, if a household has shown contamination in all of the previous
audits, their recycling bin lid will be ‘stickered shut,’ and not collected. The household will
be instructed (via another tag) to remove the contamination and put their bin out the next
fortnight for collection.
Step 4: If a household continues to contaminate the recycling bin, the final step involves
removing the recycling service. Based on the South Australian results, WALGA anticipates
there will be very few households where this action needs to be taken. In South Australia,
there were no households that reached this point.
Depending on the availability of auditors, WALGA anticipates the audits will be completed
during January – March 2015.
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Conditions of the Program
For the Program to succeed, there are a range of activities that both the Local Government
and WALGA must commit to. The following commitments have been developed based on
the South Australian experience.
If your Local Government’s Expression of Interest is accepted to be part of the Program,
an MOU between WALGA and your Local Government must be signed which commits
both organisations to these conditions.
Local Government as a WALGA partner
commits to:
Hold a briefing session / provide information
on the Program to:
- Elected Members
- Senior Management
- Customer service staff
- Media and public relations staff
WALGA as the coordinator of the program,
commits to:
Work with partner Local Governments to
engage Elected Members and other staff,
where required.
WALGA will present to your Local
Government outlining the research which
supports the Bin Tagging Program and
answer questions on how the Program will
work.
To ensure there are no surprises for anyone
employed at the Local Government, a range
of different internal stakeholders need to be
aware of the rationale and roll out of the
Program. There is likely to be both
community and media interest.
Use the generic resources developed by
WALGA (includes cobranding).
Work with WALGA to generate media
interest in the Bin Tagging Program. This
could include:
- Drafting articles for community
newspapers
- Participating in a joint media launch
etc
Logistics of the audit
To ensure value for money and that audits
are carried out in an efficient manner, the
Local Government will need to:
a) Nominate audit sites – focusing on the
areas which have higher contamination
b) Ensure the recycling collector can delay
collections on nominated collection
dates
c) Provide WALGA with permission to:
- visually inspect bins
- stick lids shut after two instances of
non-compliance
Developing generic resources for Local
Government, in several languages.
The WALGA Marketing and Media team will
work to generate media interest (including a
joint launch) in the Bin Tagging Program at
a metro wide and local level.
Logistics of the audit
a) Organise training for Council staff and
auditors
b) Organising a team of visual auditors, and
completing visual audits for
approximately 2,000 households in each
partner Local Government area
c) Providing audit data to participating Local
Governments
Following bin lids being stuck shut, the
Local Government must ensure the collector
does not pick up that bin.
d) Removing the recycling bin after three
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consecutive instances of noncompliance. For the purposes of this
trial, the decision to remove a recycling
bin will be made by the Local
Government, based on the data
provided through the WALGA audits.
In order to build the skill base of Local
Government officers, WALGA strongly
encourages the nomination of an officer(s)
to undertake the Bin tagging training and be
part of the Bin Tagging Program roll out.
This will ensure that Local Government
officers fully understand the logistical
requirements and benefits of the Program.
Be prepared to divert one waste and one
recycling truck to a nominated waste audit
facility. This is to ensure there is a good
understanding of the different waste
streams and show what has changed over
the course of the trial.
Working with partner Local Governments, to
draft a costed case study for use by the
entire Local Government sector.
Ensuring that the recycling processor will
provide pre-processing recycling and
contamination statistics for the trial period to
WALGA.
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