Find out what items are accepted in each bin.
The information provided below is to assist you with sorting your recycling and general rubbish in the bins provided by Council.
If you have trouble understanding how to sort your waste you can contact us or use our A to Z Waste and Recycling Guide.
Rubbish bins have a red or a dark green lid and are for household waste only. Make sure all your waste is securely stored in rubbish bags to prevent spillage spills during collection.
Note: You may have a dark green-lid rubbish bin at your home. We are currently in the process of changing everyone's rubbish bins. Any broken or upgraded rubbish bins are being replaced with the standard red-lid bin which is why you may see a difference to yours.
Household waste is anything that cannot be:
- re-used or recycled
- placed in your home compost bin
- placed in your FOGO bin worm farm
- placed in your yellow-lid recycling bin
- placed in your purple-lid glass bin.
Some things should never be placed in your rubbish bin include:
- hot ashes
- liquids
- oil, paint and solvents
- syringes and needles
- timber or other building materials
- unwrapped vacuum dust
- batteries
- electronic waste (anything with a cord or battery)
- clothing and other textiles.
Your yellow-lid recycling bin is for recycling paper, plastic, aluminium and metal.
You can put glass jars and bottles that are empty, clean and have the lids off in your purple glass bin.
The metal lids from glass bottles and jars can be put into your yellow recycling bin. Plastic lids must go in the rubbish bin.
For more details, please refer to the purple-lid glass bin page.
Lime green-lid food and garden organics (FOGO) bin are coming in between April and the end of June 2024 for residents who receive a Council waste collection service. The first collections for your FOGO bin will not commence until 1 July 2024.
Where your kerbside waste goes after collection
Red-lid rubbish bin contents go to Cleanaway in Ravenhall where it is placed into landfill.
Yellow-lid recycling bin contents go to APR (Australian Paper Recovery) Kerbside in Truganina. It then undergoes a sorting process to separate clean material streams which are bundled and sent to processers for recycling. For apartment buildings and multi-unit developments with Council collection services, comingled recycling goes to Cleanaway who sort materials into separate streams which are then sent off to various materials processors for recycling.
Purple-lid glass bin contents go to Visy. First they go to Laverton for sorting, crushing and processing. Then, the material is this moved to Spotswood for remanufacturing by Visy into new glass products.
Lime green-lid FOGO bin contents go to the RepurposeIT facility in Epping where it is composted and matured, ready for use in agriculture, parks and gardens.