Bin Info

Your general rubbish bin has a red lid and is collected weekly. Use your general rubbish bin only for things that can’t go in your other bins.  Check first if they can be recycled, because everything in this bin goes to landfill.   ✅ What CAN go in the general rubbish bin? ✅ Pet poo and cat litter✅ Kitchen cloths, serviettes and paper towels ✅ Old clothing, bedding and textiles ✅ Plastic bags, plastic wrap and bubble wrap✅ Plastic food wrappers ✅ Crockery and ceramics ✅ Nappies, baby wipes and sanitary products ✅ Long-life juice and milk cartons including Tetra Pak and UHT containers ✅ Drinking glasses ✅ Foam and polystyrene ✅ Heat-proof dishes e.g. Pyrex ✅ Mirrors and broken window glass ✅ Coffee pods and tea bags ✅ Pens and pencils ✅ Garden hoses ✅ Toothbrushes✅ Stickers and sticky tape✅ Plant pots   ❌ What CAN’T go in the general rubbish bin? Some items need special handling and can be dangerous for our staff if put in household bins. Use the ‘Which Bin’ tool to find out how to dispose of them safely. ❌ Electronic waste (anything with a plug or batteries) ❌ Batteries including car batteries ❌ Building materials ❌ Light globes ❌ Hazardous waste or chemicals ❌ Oil including motor oil ❌ Paint tins  ❌ Recyclable items – put these in your yellow-lidded Mixed Recycling bin! ❌ Food and garden waste – put these in your green-lidded Food and Garden bin! ❌ Glass bottles and jars – put these in your purple-lidded Glass bin! WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BIN CONTENTS?  Everything collected from your rubbish bin goes to landfill. The community benefits both environmentally and financially from reducing landfill, so it's important to use the right bins and keep recyclable items out of your rubbish bin.

Your mixed recycling bin has a yellow lid and is collected fortnightly.  Real people check recycling by hand to remove wrong items. Help them by only putting the right things in your recycling bin.   ✅ What CAN go in the mixed recycling bin? ✅ Plastic drink bottles including lids e.g. water and milk✅ Plastic bottles including lids e.g. cleaning and personal care ✅ Plastic food containers e.g. butter and yoghurt ✅ Metal and aluminium cans and tins ✅ Aluminium foil rolled into a ball ✅ Foil trays rolled into a ball ✅ Cardboard boxes ✅ Egg cartons ✅ Tissue boxes  ✅ Pizza boxes  ✅ Empty toilet paper rolls  ✅ Advertising material including flyers and catalogues ✅ Office paper ✅ Shredded paper placed inside paper bag or cardboard box ✅ Newspapers ✅ Magazines ✅ Envelopes✅ Cards✅ Uncoated deli paper✅ Wrapping paper without a metallic or laminated finish   ❌ What CAN’T go in the mixed recycling bin? ❌ Plastic bags, plastic wrap and bubble wrap ❌ Plastic food wrappers ❌ Kitchen cloths, serviettes and paper towel ❌ Old clothing, bedding and textiles ❌ Crockery and ceramics ❌ Foam and polystyrene ❌ Metal pots and pans ❌ Electronic waste i.e. anything with a plug or batteries ❌ Batteries including car batteries ❌ Building materials ❌ Light globes ❌ Hazardous waste or chemicals ❌ Paint tins  ❌ Rubbish – put these in your red-lidded general rubbish bin! ❌ Food and garden waste – put these in your green-lidded food and garden bin! ❌ Glass bottles and jars – put these in your purple-lidded glass bin! Some items that went in the yellow recycling bin in the past are no longer accepted, as many of those items were sent overseas for processing and the demand is no longer there.  We get better recycling outcomes by processing our waste locally, as it increases the value and life span of our recyclables. There is a local market for the items accepted in your mixed recycling bin.  WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BIN CONTENTS?  The contents of your mixed recycling bin goes to Visy resource recovery crentre in Laverton. Paper and cardboard is pulped. The pulp is then re-manufactured into paper products.  Products made from recycled paper and cardboard conserve trees, and their production uses 50 per cent less energy and 90 per cent less water than making them from new, raw resources. Plastics can made into a range of new products, depending on their plastic type: * Plastic (PET): new bottles. * Plastic (HDPE): laundry bottles, plastic bollards, pallets for transporting and securing cargo, fence or barrier railing and decking board. * Plastic (PP): new food-grade containers and casing around electric cabling. Producing plastics from recycled materials saves around 88 per cent of the energy required to make plastic using raw materials of oil and gas. Metals are sorted into scrap metal and aluminium. The metals are crushed, melted, purified and recast into new metal products. Making new products from recycled steel cans helps save up to 75 per cent of the energy and 40 per cent of the water needed to make steel from the raw materials.

Your food and garden bin has a green lid and is collected fortnightly.   ✅ What CAN go in the food and garden bin? Note: Food waste can be wrapped in a single sheet of newspaper or paper towel. Newspaper and paper towel on their own cannot go in this bin. ✅ Meat and bones (cooked and raw)✅ Seafood✅ Eggshells✅ Dairy e.g. butter, cheese, yoghurt  ✅ Fruits ✅ Vegetables and tofu (cooked and raw) ✅ Onions and garlic ✅ Bread and Rice ✅ Pasta ✅ Cereal ✅ Tea, loose ✅ Coffee grounds (not pods)  ✅ Garden clippings e.g. branches and twigs ✅ Grass cuttings e.g. weeds and flowers ✅ Leaves✅ Small branches (under 30cm)   ❌ What CAN’T go in the food and garden bin? ❌ Plastic bags ❌ Compostable and biodegradable bags ❌ Food containers and packaging ❌ Coffee pods ❌ Tea bags ❌ Fruit stickers ❌ Pet poo and litter ❌ Nappies and wipes ❌ Bricks, concrete and rubble ❌ Garden tools and pots ❌ Large logs (larger than 30cm) ❌ Treated wood ❌ Ash and soil WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BIN CONTENTS? Your food and garden waste is taken to Veolia organics facility in Bulla. It goes through screening to remove contaminants, followed by in-vessel composting using aeration which pasteurises the material in line with Australian Standard 4454. The resulting compost and mulch are used in commercial agricultural settings.  Paper food scrap bags To make it easier to use your food and garden bin, Council has designed and developed paper food scrap bags [https://www.hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au/Services/Waste-and-recycling/Paper-bags-for-food-recycling] you can use to line your compost caddy or wrap your food scraps. You can pick up paper bags for free from the front desk at any Council+ location, which includes all Hobsons Bay libraries and the Altona Civic Centre. Residents can collect a maximum of two packs of paper bags per day.  Residents are reminded to only use Council-provided green bins, with the Hobsons Bay logo on the front and the light-green lid. This helps the right truck collect the right bin every time.

Your glass bin has a purple lid and is collected every four weeks.   ✅ What CAN go in the glass bin? ✅ Glass bottles including lids ✅ Glass jars including lids   ❌ What CAN’T go in the glass bin? These items can’t go in your glass bin because they are made from different types of glass and aren’t single-use recyclable glass. ❌ Drinking glasses ❌ Broken crockery ❌ Storage and baking ware ❌ Perfume bottles ❌ Window glass Most glass can be recycled over and over without any decline in quality. Glass bottles and jars have their own bin so they don't break and lodge in other recyclables. Having a separate glass bin means more material is recycled to create useful products, rather than sent to landfill.  WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BIN CONTENTS?  Your glass items are processed by Visy resource recovery centre in Laverton and Spotswood. They are sorted and crushed to produce glass cullet, which is melted and manufactured into new glass products, like bottles and jars. Leftover fine fragments are used in the production of road surfaces.