The plastic wheelie bin was invented in March 1968 in the UK by Frank Rotherham Mouldings. This was invented to move waste from one side of the factory to the other. The use of wheelie bins for homes in the UK didn’t become more common until the 1980s.
It wasn’t until 2003 when the Household Waste Recycling Act was passed in the UK that required local authorities to provide households with separate bins for recycling collections. Around 30 million tonnes of UK waste come from household wheelie bins.