Tracking wheelie bins

Christchurch is starting to track its half a million rubbish bins.

The city council says the measure is to cut down on the problem of lost, stolen or damaged wheelie bins - hundreds go AWOL every month and about 16,000 went missing after the February 2011 earthquake that closed off many parts of the city.

CHCH wheelie bin collection (RNZ Conan Young)

RFID chip (Maschinenjunge CC BY-SA 3.0)

Bin collection (Screen grab CHCH CC)

Bins at kerbside for collection with lids closed (Supplied by Christchurch City Council)

RFID logo (Flickr user Christiaan Colen CC BY-SA 2.0)

All council wheelie bins are now fitted with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags.The tags get scanned by the rubbish truck on collection day to check that they're outside the right property; and if your bin is at the wrong address it doesn't get collected!

Tim Joyce is the Manager of Contract Management at Christchurch City Council.