Residents' 'hilarious' mistake after controversial bin change

The council's bin changes have been described as one of the 'worst rollouts ever' by residents.

The image of a lone bin caddy on the side of an inner city street speaks to the utter confusion residents are experiencing over recent bin changes in their area.

The resident has copped it online for placing their small FOGO (food organics and garden organics) bin by the curb after Sydney's Inner West council recently issued the bench top caddies in early October.

Left, two benchtop caddies have been placed at the edge of the curb for collection. Right, a lone FOGO caddy is branded as a 'hilarious' mistake online.
Residents in Sydney's Inner West have been mocked for the 'hilarious' mistake of putting their FOGO caddy on the street. Source: Facebook

What was intended as an incentive to encourage locals to dispose of food scraps in the kitchen — before emptying into their larger green wheelie bin for street collection — instead has been lost in communication and the clueless resident put the seven litre bin out for the garbage truck.

"Someone didn't get the memo," a local from Leichhardt joked, sharing the image online.

Confused resident not alone placing 'mini bin' on street

Despite many finding the resident's mistake "hilarious" and joking council needed to subsequently deploy a "cute mini-truck" to collect it, the resident in Leichhardt wasn't the only one to make the error.

Images from a neighbouring suburb show other residents place their FOGO caddies on the curb.

"There seem to be numerous people who think this is the collection bin rather than the bench top mini bin," a local wrote, while another said "we shouldn't laugh" at the lack of communication from council.

"This has got to be one of the worst rollouts ever," another said.

The "latest trend" in the bin fiasco comes after a Sydney dad slammed the council for providing little information to residents about the "rushed" rollout.

Why the bin changes are being made

Along with the FOGO caddies being issued, Sydney's Inner West council announced it will now only collect general waste from red bins every fortnight compared to weekly. The council hopes this will reduce the amount of compostable waste ending up in landfills.

"NSW is running out of landfill sites into which we can tip our garbage," Greens Councillor Marghanita da Cruz told Yahoo News at the start of the month. "It is hoped we can extract an additional 7,000 tonnes of food and garden waste every year from the red lid garbage (land fill) bin to FOGO green bins instead."

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