Recycle household items

Check the item can go in your yellow lid bin

We provide households with a yellow lid bin for recycling.

Only place accepted items in your yellow lid bin for recycling. We can’t collect your bin if:

• it contains a large amount of unacceptable items
• the bin lid can’t close
• there's material outside your bin.

Keep an eye out for the Australasian Recycling Label – it helps make recycling easier. Learn 6 handy tips to help you recycle right.

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Find out what to do with packaging and household items you no longer need.

6 handy recycling tips

1. Don’t put recycling in plastic bags

Place your recycling loosely in the yellow lid bin – never in plastic bags. Plastic bags jam the machinery at our sorting facility, so we can’t recycle the bags or the items inside. Use a container or box to store your recycling before putting them into your bin.

2. Remove all food and liquid from containers

No need to rinse containers before putting them in the recycling bin. They just need to be empty and dry. You might like to rinse anyway, as it keeps your recycling bin extra clean and odour-free.

3. Lids and labels can stay on

Keep lids and labels on jars and bottles. The recycling process will remove these. If you have a can top that can’t reattach, place it inside and squeeze the can closed. This helps stop smaller items from getting lost in the recycling process.

4. Give plastic items the ‘scrunch test’

A soft plastic is a plastic that can be easily scrunched into a ball, like bread bags, chocolate wrappers or plastic bags. Soft plastics can’t go in your yellow lid bin. Put them in your red lid bin.

Hard plastic packaging that keeps its structure or bounces back when you try scrunching it can be recycled in your yellow lid bin.

5. Give cardboard items the ‘tear test’

Check if a cardboard item is lined with plastic by giving it a tear. If you can’t easily tear your cardboard item, or if you see a thin layer of plastic when you do, it should go in your rubbish bin. This is common for small ice cream tubs, tetra packs and coffee cups.

6. Ignore the plastics identification number

Some plastic items have a triangle symbol of 3 chasing arrows with a number from 1 to 7 inside.

This may look like a recycling symbol, but it’s not.

The number refers to the type of plastic the item is made from.

Each type of plastic can be used to make both recyclable and non-recyclable items, so don’t use the number to decide that something can go in your yellow lid bin. Instead, refer to the Australasian Recycling Label and use the tips above to help you identify if an item is recyclable or not. 

After you finish

Where it all goes

After items are collected, they’re taken to a recycling transfer station in Alexandria, mixed with recycling from nearby council areas, and taken to Smithfield for processing. There, employees manually remove contamination, like plastic bags, and machines sort the recycling into types: paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, steel and aluminium.

These materials undergo further processing and are turned into packaging. For example, recycled glass can become a new glass bottle, paper and cardboard can become a new cardboard box and aluminium foil can become a new aluminium can.

View the journey of glass as it gets recycled.

Take your recycling to the next level

1. Buy products that can be recycled. By recycling more, you help keep items out of the red lid bin and landfill – something that could save you money. If you’re a property owner, you may be able to reduce your domestic waste charge by completing the residential waste service application to reduce the size, number or collection frequency of your red lid bins. You can also order extra free yellow lid recycling bins.
2. Buy items made from recycled material. This reduces the need for mining new resources, supports the recycling market and helps us move towards a circular economy.
3. Reduce the waste you create. While recycling is important, we must reduce and avoid waste altogether. Learn more about the 4Rs and avoiding waste at home.