Recyclables from your yellow-lid recycling bin are taken to a regional Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) at Chinderah, where they are sorted, baled and sent off for re-processing into new products and packaging.
These items are accepted in your recycling bin:
Keep out:
- Nappies, fabric and manchester (e.g. Clothing, pillows)
- Food, dirty paper or dirty cardboard (e.g. food spoiled pizza boxes)
- Syringes
- Coffee cups and lids
- Meat and biscuit trays, polystyrene
- Electrical items
A-Z examples of what’s accepted in your yellow-lid recycling bin:
- Aerosol cans (empty)
- Aluminium cans
- Aluminium foil – clean. Scrunch into a ball.
- Books
- Cardboard boxes
- Cardboard egg cartons
- Cardboard rolls
- CD/DVD covers (empty)
- Cleaning product bottles and containers
- Envelopes (including windows)
- Glass jars e.g. jam jars
A-Z examples of what’s accepted in your yellow-lid recycling bin:
- Glass bottles e.g. glass beverage bottles
- Haircare containers and bottles (e.g. shampoo bottles)
- Junk mail (paper)
- Lids larger than credit card size
- Liquid soap bottles
- Longlife milk or juice cartons (including poppers / tetra packs)
- Magazines
- Margarine containers
- Medicine bottles – glass or plastic
- Newspaper
- Office paper
- Paint tins – empty. Up to 4L size.
- Paper (other) – clean, free from food
- Punnets (e.g. berries)
- Sauce and salad dressing bottles
- Softdrink bottles (no lids)
- Steel food cans and tins (e.g. baked beans can)
- Takeaway food containers – cardboard (clean/free from food and oil)
- Takeaway food containers – hard plastic
- Telephone books
- Wrapping paper (paper types only)
Follow the Recycle Right Tips to use your recycling bin correctly:
Learn more about each Recycle Right message with the videos below or visit our regional Recycle Right Campaign.
Australasian Recycling Label (ARL)
More and more packing products now have a special label – the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) and this can be found on packaging in Australia and New Zealand. The ARL outlines which bin the packaging belongs, and whether certain parts of the packaging need to be separated into different bins or recycled elsewhere.
Not all packaging has an ARL label yet, but its getting there! You can find out more about the ARL here.
Please note: some of the labels will recommend soft plastics are returned to store. The REDcycle Program is currently on hold so for the time being, please place your soft plastics in your red-lid landfill bin. We thank you for your patience and we understand government, retailers and industry partners are working hard to ensure the system commences again.
Did you know this symbol does not mean an item is recyclable?
There are many plastic packaging products with the numbers 1-7 displayed in a triangle. Unfortunately, they look very much like a recycling symbol.
They are in fact a plastic identification code, which states the type of plastic the packaging is made from and can be found on both recyclable and non-recyclable plastics. Follow the ARL and Recycle Right tips (see above), or download the free Recycle Mate app to help you recycle right.
Recycle Mate App
The Australian Council of Recycling has developed Australia’s first artificial intelligence recycling app to help take the guesswork out of recycling.
With this app you can take a photo of an item or do a word search of an extensive item catalogue to find out where to recycle or dispose of that item and whether it can be sent to one of your kerbside bins.
As this is a fairly new app, community feedback is welcome to ensure it is continually improved.
Download the FREE Recycle Mate app to help you Recycle Right here.