Mixed recycling 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.