Canterbury-Bankstown bins: Interactive map shows spread of 10 year issue

A southwest Sydney council had been mixing recycling with rubbish for 10 years before being caught on camera. Look at the map and see if your street was affected.

An exclusive analysis of the bins being wrongly mixed by Canterbury-Bankstown council has revealed the exact streets and suburbs where the 10-year problem was at its worst.

In July, an Earlwood resident captured council-contracted waste workers mixing her red lidded waste bin and yellow lid recycling bins into the same truck and shared the video on Facebook.

Shortly after, Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour told the media the practice of mixing waste had been taking place for a decade, blaming the issue on large trucks and hard-to-access streets.

The Canterbury-Bankstown Express has obtained a copy of the council’s audit into the issue, detailing exactly which streets each of the 709 bins were being wrongly mixed on.

The problem was most widespread in Earlwood, which included 138 of the wrongly mixed recycling bins, followed shortly behind by Belmore, accounting for 113.

Next were Roselands and Punchbowl, accounting for 48 and 45 yellow lid bins respectively.

You can see on this interactive map each affected street, along with the number of bins wrongly mixed, and which day they were collected on. This interactive list allows you to search your own street, to see if you were affected.

In August, Mayor Khal Asfour said the council was committed to winning back community confidence, shown through how the problem has been identified and solutions put in place.

“The preliminary findings showed that those bins affected by mixing general and recycled waste into the same truck were in narrow streets and laneways that were difficult to access,” he said.

“But now all recycling bins, as well as any missed bins, will be collected by dedicated recycling trucks and taken to our recycling processing facility.”

At the time, The Express asked for a breakdown on which streets were affected, but were denied.

Also in August, The Express asked for a timeline on when the new trucks would be arriving, and did not receive a response.

On Monday, The Express again asked council: if the new trucks and routes were operational, and whether any bins were still being wrongly mixed, but did not receive a response prior to publishing.