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Council scraps 'chip in bin' recycling scheme after declaring it unworkable Daily
Mail A council which became the first in Britain to use microchips in wheelie bins to find out how much people were recycling has scrapped the scheme after declaring it unworkable. The move is a blow to what is feared to be long-term Government plans for controversial "pay as you throw" taxes which charge households for the amount of rubbish they have collected. The Government-funded system phased in by South Norfolk Council since 2002 involved installing identification microchips under the covers of 104,000 wheelie bins - two for each of the 52,000 homes in its area.
(Article continues below) The council's dozen bin lorries were fitted with computerised equipment costing £25,000 for each truck so each bin could be weighed individually during a round. Scanning equipment on the lorries read each chip to identify which house a bin came from, enabling the information to be stored on a computer card in the cab, showing how much each home was recycling. But a combination of electrical, data, mechanical and hydraulic faults meant that the equipment repeatedly broke down, forcing bin men to over-ride the system so they could complete their rounds. The system which was introduced when the council was under Lib-Dem control also failed to find favour with the new Tory rulers of the council who took control in May last year. Council leader John Fuller said: "Any chip-in-bin system would have to accurately record the weight of every bin, every week, without mistakes, for a whole year. But the system simply didn't work reliably enough. "A system that sounded good on paper in London failed to work at 7.30am on a cold and wet Monday in December in South Norfolk. It was time to bin the technology." Mr Fuller said that staff persevered in trying to resolve data problems, spending hundreds of hours contacting the software firm, the weighing system supplier and the bin supplier.
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