A Hamilton Hill man has labelled his local council 'bin snoops' after it employed workers to rummage through people's trash to make sure they were separating their rubbish correctly.
The City of Cockburn, in Perth's south, has inspected more than 13,000 bins since it began rolling out its new three bin system which requires residents on blocks bigger than 400 square metres to divide their household waste into garden waste (green bin), recycling (yellow bin) and general waste (red bin).
Community waste education officers are tasked to check the bins on the verge the morning they are due to be emptied and issue residents a 'happy face' or 'frowny face' tag depending on the contents of their bins.
Resident Thomas McKinney has complained to the council the "bizarre" new initiative is a breach of privacy.
"I strongly resent the extreme waste of ratepayers money by paying people to walk around and snooping in our rubbish bins and sticking silly tags on," he said.
"I received a 'sad' face on my new red bin, reportedly for putting in paper, and a plastic shaver head. How it was discovered amongst the snotty tissues, I don't know.
"In respect to the small amount of paper I put in the red bin, it is paper which may contain personal information, which I would prefer to go to landfill / compost, rather than enter into the public arena by going through the recycle chain."
Mr McKinney said he felt "duly chastised" after receiving his sad face tag, and called the scheme a farce.
But City of Cockburn director of works and engineering, Charles Sullivan, said the tags were to encourage households to separate their waste correctly.
"A survey following the 2015 trial in Hamilton Hill found that over 80 per cent of respondents found the tagging of the bins helpful for making decisions about what to put in each of the bins," he said.
"Once placed on the verge, the contents in the bins are the property of the City of Cockburn and it is the city's responsibility to process the waste.
"Bins are only inspected to ascertain the types of materials within the bins and no personal information is gathered."
The city was one of eight WA councils to be granted funding through the Waste Authority to either trial or roll-out bin tagging initiatives, which data showed was effective in changing people's behaviour to waste disposal.
The City of Cockburn spent $7,500 printing more than 70,000 of the tags as part of a $130,000 grant it received from the Waste Authority to roll out its three bin education program.
It has also employed community waste education officers, who are paid $31 an hour to "audit" people's bins.
Mr McKinney claimed the "bin snoopers" having to check the bins before they were emptied had led to a four-hour delay in the rubbish trucks arriving.
He said from now on he would soak any personal documents in the sink before placing them in his recycle bin.
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