Bin tags to monitor recycling

Bins in Moodiesburn will now be electronically tagged in a project to monitor recycling rates.

Devices will be attached to up to 20,000 individual bins at 5000 homes in the village and Cumbernauld in the “smart waste monitoring” pilot project.

The council will be the first local authority in Scotland to trial the technology at residential properties, to record and assess the weight of each bin with the aim of improving recycling rates – and which could later be rolled out across the entire area.

Members of the authority’s planning committee were updated at an online meeting on the launch of the £150,000 test programme, which is being funded by and run in conjunction with Zero Waste Scotland.

It will begin with an initial 880 households on 19 streets in Cumbernauld, and will then be extended to more addresses across the town plus 51 streets in Moodiesburn.

Householders in the chosen pilot area have been contacted, and were given information about the project plus details of how to opt out if preferred; with councillors being told that only 1.5 per cent of those approached have chosen to do so.

A report for councillors noted: “No personal details are being held or gathered as part of the trial – the bin tag only holds one piece of information, an identifying code assigned to the property that [it] belongs to.

“We hope residents will be happy to take part, but they will have a period of time to contact the service prior to tags being fitted if they do not wish to do so; should residents chose to opt out at a later stage, the tags will not be removed but we will not record data for these properties.”

Each bin will be fitted with a radio frequency identification tag, while two refuse lorries serving the area have been fitted with weighing equipment to record the volumes being collected.