Hawkesbury residents can expect to have their household recycling and organic bins checked to reduce the incidence of contamination.
The new program, Get it Right on Bin Night, will see randomly selected households have their bins inspected three times over the next two months.
Council’s waste education contractors, EnviroCom, are conducting the inspections and have notified residents who have been selected to participate in the program.
Bins placed on the kerbside are inspected on the morning of scheduled pick-ups and those whose bins are inspected are advised of the results with either a ‘Thank you’ bin hanger or a ‘Contamination’ bin hanger.
Residents will be given another chance to ‘Get it Right on Bin Night’ during a second bin inspection.
Contamination occurs when the wrong things are placed in the yellow-lidded recycling bin or the green lidded garden organics waste bin.
Mayor Ford said the most common contaminants in yellow-lidded recycling bins were plastic bags, garden waste, rubbish, food scraps and clothing.
‘‘Getting it right will allow the Hawkesbury to recover as many recyclable and garden organics resources as possible to prolong the life of landfill and keep domestic waste charges as low as possible for the future,’’ Mayor Ford said.
Recent recycling bin inspections have found that about nine per cent of them are contaminated compared to a low 0.2 per cent of the garden organics bin.
■ Details: www. hawkesbury.nsw.gov.au or ring 4560 4444.
