Residents of Lorne, on Victoria’s scenic Great Ocean Road, have been locked in a battle of wits for years now.
They’ve been fighting skirmishes with a large flock of increasingly intelligent sulphur-crested cockatoos that love lifting the lids of the town’s wheelie bins and spreading rubbish on the ground.
“What began as a simple idea became a complex and demanding project,” Mr Walls, a retired caravan park broker, explains.
Made from recycled plastic at Horsham in Victoria’s Wimmera region, the frames are screwed or pop-riveted to the wheelie bin lid to thwart entry.
“The theory is you can’t lift what you’re standing on … and in the five years we’ve had them out testing them there hasn’t been a failure that I’m aware of,” Mr Walls says.
The design has been so successful that Surf Coast Shire has spent $50,000 to buy and install 500 of the aprons on Lorne residents’ bins for free.
"The theory is you can’t lift what you’re standing on "
I’m thinking, “What if they learn to grip the handles or edge, and take off?”
I would have made a great cocky…
mfw the cockatoos learn to collaborate.
That title is a fuckin roller-coaster.
Wouldn’t a brick on top of the lid be enough?
Anyway, people should also be doing the obvious: don’t waste food and don’t buy so much junk. This has been known for decades. If leftovers were consumed and food placed in bins was composted instead everyone would win.
The brick probably would be enough to stop it being opened (unless a particularly inquisitive cockatoo pushed it off) but the problem is that you have to remove the brick just before the garbage truck comes - if you don’t then either the lifting mechanism flings the brick over the truck or you lose your brick into it.
Just take the brick off on bin day. The cockies wouldn’t have enough time to create a mess unless the trucks come around in the afternoon. Why am I arguing? 😆 They’ve found a better solution.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps
