Bundaberg council scraps Let’s Get it Sorted campaign

Bundaberg Regional Council’s short lived bin inspection plan has been scrapped after public backlash over the thought residents’ wheelie bins would be randomly inspected and tagged.

Bundaberg Regional Council’s audacious plan to introduce a bin-searching and tagging system has been canned after a wave of backlash from locals. Pictured is Mayor Helen Blackburn, who seemed just as surprised as everyone at the controversial decision, and waste portfolio councillor Gary Kirk, who has defended the decision.

Bundaberg Regional Council’s short lived bin inspection plan has been scrapped after public backlash over the thought residents’ wheelie bins would be randomly inspected and tagged, with Mayor Helen Blackburn revealing her elected colleagues had been blindsided by the news.

“Bin tagging is rubbish,” she said in a post on her Facebook page soon after the news broke.

“Councillors were never consulted about this decision to tag bins.

“I’ll be asking for this to be put on hold until the entire council has an opportunity to decide on the future of such a program and what it means for our community,” she said.

The council was subsequently given a full briefing on the proposal and decided to not proceed.

The council received a government grant of $245, 520 to carry out the campaign aimed at making the community better at recycling.

Earlier last month, a post on the council’s Facebook page said random inspections would begin in March as part of the Queensland Government-supported Let’s Get It Sorted campaign to improve recycling and reduce contamination.

The announcement was met with a torrent of online criticism.

A key concern raised was that bins receiving a red tag for contamination would not be collected.

When a resident asked for clarification on this, the council confirmed that bins would not be collected if they received a red tag, leaving people to dispose of their rubbish themselves.

Despite Ms Blackburn’s claim that councillors were never consulted, waste, water, and renewable economy portfolio holder councillor Gary Kirk defended the program in a 7News interview.

Mr Kirk said a major issue was residents putting their recycling in plastic bags, which contributed to 18 percent of items in recycling bins being non-recyclable.

“One of the reasons as to why we are doing it is because it is having negative impacts on our landfill,” he said.

The program intended on grading households recycling bins with one of four colours for their recycling efforts, was met with significant backlash after the announcement was made online, and has since been canned.

Originally published as Bundaberg council scraps Let’s Get it Sorted campaign