Three Strike System Underway For Recycle Bin Inspections

The pilot recycling bin inspection across Southland has seen hundreds of properties tagged for either low level or significant contamination.

Editors note: The inspections are for the recycling bins, if in doubt put it in the red bin!We have updated the headline and story to avoid confusion.

A report from WasteNet director Fiona Walker to the Waste Advisory Group committee this week, outlined figures in the new initiative between February 10 and March 18.

While only 161 bins were tagged with significant contamination across the whole of Southland, there were a further 409 tagged for low level - 72 properties were visited more than once.

Bin inspections were reintroduced to help combat ongoing contamination rates of recycled material being redirected from landfill.

In her report Fiona said the most common types of contamination were soft plastics (25%) and dirty items/rubbish/other (25%), followed by lids/pumps (22%), garden/food waste (7%), and fabric (7%).

When it first started, the inspections received a hostile response from some residents, and inspectors were now wearing body cameras to record incidents.

The next stage of the implementation - which started on March 31, involved the Three-Strike System.

During this phase, a property which received three red tags in any one calendar year would have their recycling bin removed and the service suspended until the resident signed and returned a Reinstatement Agreement Form to reactivate the service. 

The report said it would be approximately nine weeks from the launch of programme to when a resident could potentially have their bin taken away, due to the time it will take bin inspectors to cover all of the Invercargill City Council and Southland District Council collection routes.

The district’s contamination rates were currently 19% compared to just 5-10% in Christchurch.

WasteNet decided not to introduce a mandatory penalty or introduce costs to recover the bins, and it was noted that just putting glass into the recycling bins wouldn’t enforce a red tag either.