Transparent bins floated as possible solution to Victoria’s ongoing waste issue

As the state’s waste crisis rages on, there is hope a new type of wheelie bin will force households to reduce how much they send to landfill by guilting their waste habits.

Clear bins could be key to forcing Victorians to reduce their waste.

Guilting ratepayers into ­recycling properly with transparent wheelie bins could be part of the solution to Victoria’s waste crisis.

Environment Victoria’s Dr Nicholas Aberle said most households could easily reduce how much they send to landfill, and if transparent wheelie bins guilted them into making some basic changes in consumption habits, then that’s to be welcomed.

“There’s no question that we need to improve our recycling systems,” he said.

Clear wheelie bins could be the solution to Victoria’s waste problems.

But as well as encouraging householders to think about the waste they created, governments needed to step-up and ban packaging which could not be recycled and create incentives for businesses to produce less waste, he said.

Clear wheelie bins — rolled out by Western Australia’s Mindarie Regional Council in 2018 — also got the thumbs up from Port Phillip councillor Dick Gross, who is chair of one of the country’s oldest environmental groups, Keep Victoria Beautiful.

The Perth trial, designed to make ratepayers “face their waste”, saw transparent wheelie bins given to 20 households, for eight weeks.

Port Phillip’s former mayor, Cr Gross said clear bins “could be fun”, and allow people to check out how much and what their neighbours recycled.

“I like the transparent bins idea. Not to have a punitive ­approach but to create a bit of awareness,” he said.

“I wouldn’t dismiss it.”

But new Port Phillip mayor Bernadene Voss told the Sunday Herald Sun the municipality wasn’t considering transparent bins any time soon. It was more pressing that a council kerbside ­recycling and waste model be developed across the State, she said.

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This year, the council would trial kerbside glass recycling, communal glass recycling, and kerbside food and organics recycling as ways to better manage waste, she said.

Stonnington and Yarra councils also said see-through bins didn’t factor in their plans, with the latter expressing concern they “wouldn’t be a good look”, as the plastic would likely scuff and go cloudy over time.

Greater Geelong council described clear bins as an “interesting concept”.

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