Drop off tricky household items for recycling

Walk, ride or drive. Find a drop-off option convenient for you. Quarterly, weekly and daily.

Free

Project Status: When you need to do this

If you’re a City of Sydney resident with unwanted items that don’t belong in your household bins, such as a broken laptop, dead batteries, polystyrene packaging or clothes in great condition that can be resold.

Bring these tricky items and more to our recycling events and drop-off locations.

Commercial, business or construction waste is not accepted.

Examples of what items can be dropped off. Coffee pods, clothing, small electronic items like mobile phones, printer cartridges, light bulbs and tubes, x-rays, household gas bottles, polystyrene and paint.

What you need to do

Check your items are accepted

Different locations may accept different items. View the full list of items that can be accepted at Recycle It Saturday and our Ultimo recycling pop-up. We only accept batteries, mobile phones, small light bulbs (no long fluorescent tubes) and small electronics (less than 11cm wide and 30cm long) in our recycling stations.
- Aluminium coffee pods
- Clothes, linen and toys in great condition – these will be donated and resold
- Electronics and batteries – check your item is accepted, size limits apply
- Empty blister packs – including empty pill packets made of plastic and foil or fully foil ones. If your blister pack came in a cardboard box, recycle the box separately in your yellow lid bin at home.
- Household gas cylinders – including nitrogen, SodaStream and LPG bottles
- Large cardboard at Recycle It Saturday only
- Light bulbs and fluorescent tubes
- Paint (water and oil-based) at our Ultimo recycling pop-up only
- Polystyrene
- Printer cartridges
- Small metal items – check your item is accepted, size limits apply
- X-rays and scans
Commercial, business or construction waste

Here’s what businesses in the local area need to know about recycling services and reducing waste. Find out where to recycle all those tricky items through Planet Ark’s business recycling directory.

Hazardous waste like chemicals and pesticides

These items can be recycled at a Household Chemical CleanOut event or Community Recycling Centre. Find one near you.

Smoke alarms and fire extinguishers

These items can be recycled at a Household Chemical CleanOut event or Community Recycling Centre. Find one near you.

Soft plastics

Put them in your red lid bin.

Whitegoods, mattresses, furniture

These items can be collected in our free weekly pick-up service.

Choose a drop-off option convenient for you

Our Recycle It Saturday events are held every 3 months at Alexandra Canal Depot, 67C Bourke Road, Alexandria.

Before you arrive, group items into different cardboard boxes and pack these in your boot, backseat or trailer so we can easily remove them.

This is a drive-through event. Stay in your seat. Our team will unpack your vehicle for you and get you on your way faster. If you’re walking or riding a bike, you can access a separate drop-off area.

Find out more
Drop off household batteries, mobile phones including chargers and cables, small light bulbs and small electronics less than 11cm wide and 30cm long to one of our free recycling stations at our customer service centres, libraries, community and recreation centres.

Electronic items need to be small enough to fit into the collection hole – think headphones, smartwatches, webcams and small digital cameras.

What you can’t drop off at a recycling station: no electronics over 11cm wide and 30cm long, like laptops, iPads and power boards. No big batteries, like car batteries. No large lamps or long fluorescent tubes.

Find a recycling station

Consider re-use

When you drop off clothes and toys, they are resold and reused. Some electronics are repaired or refurbished, with data wiping, before being resold. All other items you drop off are for recycling only.

If your items are still in working condition, try to find a new home for your household items first. You could give them away to someone who needs it or try advertising online through Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Trading Post, Ebay, Freecycle or Rosella Street. Follow these tips to learn how to sell your stuff online fast.

Find out more about reducing, reusing and repairing.

Where does it all go?

Clothes, linen and toys are donated to charity or reused in communities around the world that need them most.
Polystyrene will be recycled into products such as building insulation and photo frames.
Electronics are sorted and broken down into various materials for recycling, such as metals, plastics, circuit boards, glass and more. Some electronics are repaired or refurbished, with data wiping, before being resold. Batteries can be recycled into new ones. Mobile phone components can be used to make new technology, reducing the need for mining raw materials.
Light bulbs are crushed and the glass wool can become home insulation.
Gas bottles are inspected for reuse. Rejected bottles are shredded and the metal is recycled. The gas is recovered.
X-rays are recycled for their silver, which can be used in jewellery or electrical components. The remaining backing film is recycled into items like shampoo bottles or polyester fleece.
Aluminium coffee pods are separated for their resources. Coffee grounds are composted. The aluminium casings can be infinitely recycled into new products.
Printer cartridge recycling recovers the plastics, metals, ink and toner. Plastics are separated by type before being refined and metals are sent for smelting. They are then sold as raw materials for manufacturing. Ink is refined, mixed and sold as printing ink.
Small metal items are taken to a local recycling facility and sorted into categories such as steel, copper, aluminium, lead, silver and gold. These different metals are shredded and sent to a smelter where they are mixed with other materials to create new products.
Blister packs are shredded, ground and mechanically separated into their component parts. The plastic is used to make decking products and the foil is turned into aluminium pucks, used by steel manufacturers during the steel-making process.