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Profile | Bin Lid Stands
Inside Waste typically runs two profiles in each issue, one of a waste personality, and the other of a company. This month however, we’ ve chanced upon a new sport that we think warrants a larger profile. How often can the sector lay claim to a new sport that could take the world by storm?
We speak to Tim Fox, one of the creators of Bin Lid Stands. What is Bin Lid Stands( BLS) and how are waste truck drivers judged? A bin lid stand occurs when a bin is emptied by the truck and placed on the ground in a manner that causes the bin to tip and balance on its lid. A BLS can be judged against many factors, such as style, the location, slope and ground surface, but primarily, it’ s the angle of the lid that counts most. But, who is the real performer... the driver or the bin? Who are the people behind BLS and what drove the team to launch Australia’ s newest sport? My brothers and I had been sending each other pictures of BLSs over SMS and then decided to create a page to store the pictures and share them with friends. The page also provided us with an interesting social experiment to learn about social media. We never intended to create anything big. It just grew and continued to do so. We kept the page as pure as possible, only promoting what we considered to be special( and real) BLS performers. We believe this has been a key ingredient in the page’ s success. Have you guys attempted a BLS? How challenging is it? We’ re not in the waste management business, so we’ ve not had the pleasure of performing but we have learnt a few techniques from the BLS community. It seems to be a combination of art and luck involved. There are quite a few variables in play, so you never really know how the bin will land. What’ s the most impressive BLS you’ ve encountered to date? We’ ve had a few entries for big waste bins- they’ re impressive. The artistic shots are also amazing to see, like the blue-lidded BLS that we use on our profile picture on Facebook. Looking back over the BLS performances over the years, it’ s just too difficult to call out a single one as being the most impressive. Any plans to go further with this in one way or another? Never really had any plans for it. The BLS sport seems to be plotting its own course for the time being. It’ s a terrible shame that our original 50,000( followers) BLS Facebook page was hijacked and has become click-bait ads for our fans and that Facebook won’ t help us, so our short-term plans are to re-build our BLS community with the new‘ binlidstand’ page. A quick thanks to your readers that have supported the page, but be sure to unlike the old click-bait page and come over to the real BLS community( the one with the blue-lidded BLS profile pic) here: https:// facebook. com / binlidstand /
A BLS can be judged against many factors, including style.
SA Budget: waste levy to rise
THE South Australian government has announced that it would increase the solid waste levy in five increments over the next four years.
At present, the levy sits at $ 62 a tonne and will eventually rise to $ 103 per tonne, raising an extra $ 64 million in revenue. The first increase of $ 5 came into effect on July 1 and the levy will then rise to $ 76 on September 1.
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis said the revenue will go towards increasing recycling and creating up to 350 jobs in the process.
The Local Government Association of SA( LGA) and the Waste Management Association of Australia( WMAA) have welcomed the government’ s commitment to invest part of the waste levy in waste recovery and climate change initiatives but said the increase could pose challenges to councils.
“ While many industry participants were aware an increase in the levy of approximately $ 5 per tonne was coming this financial year, most were unaware of the second increase set down for September 1. Such late notice is problematic as we are now five days into the new financial year and budgets have been set many months ago. Revision at this stage will prove to be both costly and difficult,” WMAA CEO Martin Tolar said.
Meanwhile, the Australian Landfill
Owners Association said the levy announcement has re-opened concerns that landfill owners are being unfairly asked to take responsibility for bad debts and late customer payments.
“ As landfill levies have escalated, landfill owners are increasingly being burdened by levy collection and bad debt costs,” ALOA CEO Max Spedding said.
“ ALOA is supportive of levies being included in clearly articulated waste strategies but recent increases have raised administration costs to an unfair level.”
ALOA is calling on state regulators to introduce arrangements to compensate landfill owners for the cost of levy collection and administration, as well as allow deductions for legitimate bad debts.
6 INSIDEWASTE AUGUST 2016 Weekly news updates at www. BEN-global. com / waste