One of our neighbouring properties has two families living in a dual occupancy type arrangement. They both have 2 very young children including at least one in each that are still in nappies. The property has 2 x 240 litre red lidded garbage bins (which is the larger option from the standard 140 litre), 1 x 240 litre yellow lidded recycling bin and 1 x 240 litre green lidded organics bin. The two families never (literally) use the organics bin because they don't separate food waste in the kitchen and all garden lawn clippings and prunings are put back on the garden beds. So they are left with the 2 garbage bins and 1 recycling bin.
The organics bin is the Council's preferred bin so it is a weekly collection and the garbage bins are collected fortnightly. The recycling is also collected fortnightly.
Each week the garbage bins are overflowing, the recycling bin is overflowing and the organics bin is empty. The result is fly infestation emanating from their bin area.
I have been trying to work out whether this is a system failure or is it just this property. I always arrive at questioning if the public should be pushed harder towards recycling and composting. My answer is yes, when we are trying to get them to do something more, but this needs to be done in a consultative manner.
The families in question have a lot of milk and juice containers which quickly fill the recycling bin and then overflow into the garbage bins. The nappies also quickly fill the fortnightly garbage bins. A good solution would be an additional recycling bin to reduce overflow. A more difficult tactic would be to convince the families to start separating food waste in their kitchen. This would be unlikely to ever use the full potential of the organics bin given the families' proclivity towards processed foods.
So the service has an under-utilised bin in the order of 12.48 cubic metres per year. I imagine there is an incredible amount of unused organics capacity Australia wide that adds unnecessary cost to waste services, as well as other safety and environmental issues associated with more trucks on the road. The same may be argued for many garbage or residual waste bins, with my guess being that recycling bins have the highest rate of filling.
What should be done about that? Should the property be able to cancel the service? Should nothing be done? Should more intensive education be conducted to nudge the families towards use of the organics bin, which may then increase over time?
Following on from last week's blog, I imagine a system where truck drivers can flag a property on their GPS system (or manually) where the bin system is blatantly out of step with the resident's disposal habits. Council education staff could then engage with that property to fix the bin combination and provide more tailored education, including follow ups.
My experience has always been that people are keen to get a bin combination remedied as they don't like overflowing bins. People are most receptive to change when there is a crisis. At that point of offering to fix someone's problem comes the opportunity for them to consider a change of habit that might include use of an organics bin.
See ya next week.
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