Sydney’s Canterbury City Council won the Norman Lee Memorial Award for Community Partnerships at the recent Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils annual awards presentation, for its design of their innovative bin lids.The design is a series of raised symbols and tactile messages on the lids. They identify garbage, recycling and greenwaste bins. This enables the visually impaired to recognise and identify the bins, without solely relying on the colour coded systems used by a vast majority of other Councils.
Mayor of Canterbury City, Councillor Kaye Griffin, said that the colour coded bins had alienated the visually impaired who sought to lead independent lives. Council worked with several agencies to develop the bin lids. The production of the lids is fairly inexpensive and simple.
“The potential exists for these symbols to be adopted across Australia, even internationally,” said Councillor Griffin. “In fact Marrickville Council has already incorporated our design in their new bin roll out. This design can be used by other Councils or service providers at no additional cost to bin manufacture, yet it affords members of the community greater access to domestic waste collection services.”
In developing an access equity policy for the waste service, Council worked with the Royal Blind Society, Retina Australia, Blind Citizens Australia, bin manufacturer Sulo, Southern Sydney Waste Board and the community.
The Norman Lee Memorial Award for Community Partnerships was open to all 12 Councils in SSROC. Canterbury City Council’s bin lid design was the successful entry out of 25 submissions.
For further information contact Angela Maier, Waste Education Officer at Canterbury City Council, on (02) 9789 9485.
