Council officials will search through residents’ rubbish and shame lazy recyclers with a garish sticker on their wheelie bins, under a new WA government waste program.

The stickers, of yellow, green or red hands pointing downwards, may be placed on the bins of people who sort waste into the wrong bins.

Launched on Thursday, the ‘Own Your Waste’ website encourages people to properly sort their waste into landfill, recycling and green waste bins.

The WA Government has found that “approximately 25 per cent of the contents of a household’s general waste bin is actually recyclable material”.

It is part of a $20 million waste program launched by the Western Australian government to divert more waste from landfill.

Under the initiative, councils will conduct bin audits of residents to check the contents of their rubbish, recyclables and compost bins.

If residents are found to sort their waste into the wrong bins, council officials with paste the stickers on their bins.

The stickers are meant to link to the councils’ websites, with information on how to correctly sort rubbish.

The stickers are presumably aimed at shaming residents into sorting their rubbish correctly-or risk ridicule from their neighbours.

The program aims to “help residents understand how to sort their waste correctly and highlight where they can get more information on sorting their waste”, according to the Own Your Waste website.

The typical household creates 1,454 kilograms including approximately 100 kilograms of plastic packaging, according to the Own Your Waste website.

It comes after WA introduced a plastic bag ban in July, which banned lightweight plastic bags with up to 35 microns thick across the state.

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