Our top 10 tips to help you bin right

Over the past week we’ve had some great questions come in about what you can put in your yellow wheelie bin. To help you bin good, we’ve put together a list of 10 handy tips.

Tip #1

Soft plastics – any plastic you can easily scrunch or bend in your hand, like plastic bags, cling film, courier bags, bubble wrap, chip packets, frozen food bags, biscuit trays, sushi trays, bread bags, chocolate bar wrappers and plastic ties – need to go in the red bin. 

Tip #2

Bottle tops and lids of ANY kind should go in the red bin. They’re made from a different material and if they are left or or put in the yellow bin they will contaminate the recycling.

Tip #3

Food-soiled cardboard and paper, such as pizza boxes, fish ‘n’ chip paper, burger bags and paper towels, should go in the green bin.

Tip #4

Only hard plastic bottles and containers numbered 1,2 and 5 can go in the yellow bin. However, they need to be the size of an individual yoghurt pot or bigger but no larger in size than three litres to get through our automated sorting plant. Don’t squash them or bag them up. Make sure you clean them and remove the lids.

Tip #5

Bags and packaging that are bio-degradable or compostable don’t break-down within the 12 weeks it takes us to turn the contents of your green wheelie bin into compost so they need to be home composted or disposed of in the red bin . 

Tip #6

Cartons that hold liquid or food – like juice, yoghurt, soy milk or milk cartons – can’t be accepted for recycling. They need to go in the red bin.

Tip #7

Drink cans, metal tins and household aerosol cans are the only metal items that can go in your yellow bin. Remember to give them a quick rinse and make sure they are loose in the bin. Any other metal items might cause breakdowns in the machinery at our processing facility. If you want to get rid of metal tools, kitchen pots and pans, or household appliances you can drop them off for free at one of our three EcoDrop recycling centres where they can be reused at the Ecoshop or salvaged as scrap metal.

Tip #8

Polystyrene - whether it is in the shape of meat trays or packaging peanuts - needs to go in your red bin.

Tip #9

Clean cardboard and paper needs to be the size of an envelope or larger to go in the yellow bin.  If it is smaller it can go in the green bin. If you can remove any packaging tape around the cardboard, we would appreciate it but it’s not essential.

Tip #10

Any paper or cardboard that has a coating to waterproof it, like till receipts, disposable coffee cups and fast food drink cups, need to go in the red bin because they cannot be recycled.

Remember the wheelie bin app, which you can download from the App Store and Google Play, has great information on what can go in each of the bins.