West Torrens Council to spend $30,000 to check what residents are putting in their red rubbish bins

AN Adelaide council will spend tens of thousands of dollars of ratepayers’ money to look inside bins to find items that should have been recycled.

A West Torrens Council red bin in Torrensville.

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WEST Torrens Council will spend up to $30,000 of ratepayers’ money to look inside your bin.

The council voted at last week’s meeting to conduct an audit of 175 randomly selected red-lidded bins in a rubbish survey.

West Torrens Council chief executive Terry Buss with a wheelie bin. Source: File

The idea is to understand what goes in the bins – and how to reduce the problem of recyclables ending up in landfill.

It should be a way of saving money, according to Cr Kym McKay.

“I strongly believe that our money will be bought back three-fold when we know we are saving good recyclables going to landfill, which we pay for,” Cr McKay said.

“We pay quite significant costs and they are rising and it gives us a clearer look at what is going into landfill.”

The council has 28,559 red bins across the district and takes about 12,000 tonnes of rubbish into landfill every year, costing about $1 million.

West Torrens Mayor John Trainer said the audit was being done to ensure people were disposing of rubbish in the correct bins.

“Most people overwhelmingly do go to the effort of separating their waste into the three streams but we’d still like to check that,” Mr Trainer said.

“Sometimes passing people just lob stuff in any old bin as they are going past a house.”

Originally published as West Torrens Council to spend $30,000 to check what residents are putting in their red rubbish bins