Recycling bin

This bin is for recyclable items. Rinse out all containers (no food bits please!).

Bin tag (sticker) on your recycling bin?
Find out why and what to do next.

The following materials are permitted to be put in your recycling bin:

All rigid disposable plastic containers from the kitchen, bathroom and laundry*
Glass bottles and jars
Aluminium cans
Steel cans
Milk cartons, Tetra Paks, and Poppers
Aerosol cans
Paper, newspapers, magazines
Cardboard

* Soft plastic items that can easily be squashed in your hand (i.e. plastic film and chip packet wrappers) cannot be recycled through the yellow recycling bin.

The following materials are NOT to be put in your recycling bin:

Plastic bags and soft plastics
Bagged recycling
Polystyrene (Styrofoam)
Window or mirror glass
Plastic toys
Crockery or porcelain (plates and mugs)
Coffee cups and lids
Drinking glasses
Light bulbs
Pizza boxes (unless clean)
Meat trays
Bubble wrap
Wax-coated fruit boxes
Paint tins

More information on how to recycle tricky items can be found in the A-Z of Recycling.

Weight limit: 80Kg

Check your collection dates

Where does this waste go?

Recycling saves landfill space, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, saves energy and saves water. The contents of Council's recycling bins are first taken to Kimbriki Resource Recovery Centre in Ingleside, then loaded onto semi-trailers and sent to iQRenew's materials recovery facility for sorting and further processing into new products.

Watch the Planet Ark video below to find out how items are separated and processed for recycling:

Recycling has real benefits – on average, Willoughby residents' recycling annually saves:

140 million litres of water - enough to fill 56 Olympic sized swimming pools
Enough energy to power 655 homes
4,264 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions - equivalent to removing 1,024 cars off our roads
23,400 cubic metres of landfill

Figures based on Willoughby City Council's annual recycling tonnages using Visy's Environmental Benefits of Recycling Calculator

Unfortunately, not everything can successfully be recycled. The diagram below explains how items are processed so they can be turned into new products, and why some things can’t be recycled.

(JPG, 4MB)