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.