Household Recycling: All You Need to Know

Kerbside recycling bins were introduced in Australia in the 1980s, helping households easily reduce the amount of waste they send to landfills they produce and recover any used items suitable for remanufacturing. Despite these systems being in place for so long, many Australians still make innocent recycling mistakes that lead to contaminated recycling loads and recyclable items still ending up in landfills.

To help avoid this, we’ve put together this guide to all you need to know about household recycling in Australia. Let’s get started.

Recycling items must go in the bin loose

Statistics show that a whopping 16% of Victorians place their recycling in plastic bags, which causes major contamination at recycling centres as these facilities are not geared to handle any kind of plastic bags, potentially damaging the equipment by getting stuck in the machines.

Another reason recyclable items in plastic bags cannot be recycled is that they pose a health and safety risk to the recycling centres’ staff, as the contents are not visible and could contain sharp or dangerous objects. Because of this, it’s important that you always place all recyclable items in the bin loose so that they can be properly sorted and processed as intended.

E-waste must be dropped off at the correct points

Many Australians are also unsure of how to dispose of their electronic waste such as batteries, light bulbs, appliances and smart devices, often putting it either in their rubbish bin or recycling bin. E-waste was banned from all landfills by the Victorian government in 2019, meaning that it’s not suitable for any rubbish removal household bin.

Instead, it must be taken to a drop-off point, which can be located using the Recycling Near You directory. If there’s no drop-off point located in your area, you can also try checking your local council’s website for other disposal options.

Understanding packaging symbols

Understanding the symbols on packaging can be a minefield, and they don’t always indicate whether or not an item can be placed in your recycling bin. Many items can have multiple symbols on them and many of these symbols might not mean what you think they do.

Most of us can recognise the recycling symbol (also known as the Mobius Loop), which means that an item can be recycled or made from recycled materials. What often confuses people, however, is the plastics identification code, which includes a number from 1-7 inside of the recycling symbol. This doesn’t mean that an item is recyclable, instead signifying what kind of plastic it’s made out of. Numbers 1 to 2 can be recycled, whereas for 3 to 7, you’ll have to check your local council’s recycling advice.

Collecting, sorting and processing

Many people find it useful to know more about the recycling process, and what exactly happens to their waste once it’s picked up and whisked away.

Once your rubbish is collected by a recycling truck, it’s taken to a sorting facility, also known as a Materials Recovery Facility. From there, staff perform a manual pre-sorting process to pick out anything that can’t be recycled. These items, known as contaminants, include soft plastics and clothing that pose the risk of getting caught in the sorting machines.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible for the staff to pick out everything that they need to from the fast-paced conveyor belts. Contaminants cause a major problem for buyers who purchase recycled paper, metal and plastic because even a few plastics mixed in with these items can mean that the recycled items can’t be used to produce new high-quality products.

After being manually sorted for contaminants, everything is placed onto a conveyor belt and sorted into different groups like steel, aluminium, cardboard, paper and glass. This is one of the largest and most involved steps of the process, requiring a combination of heavy manpower and the use of high-tech sorting machines.

Once all the recyclables have been sorted into separate groups, they’re sent off to processing facilities to be prepared to be turned into brand-new products. For example, hard plastics are often turned into flakes which can be used to make bottles and containers, paper and cardboard are made into new paper and glass are crushed and melted before being poured into moulds to create new jars, fibreglass and bottles.

You may also like to read: How to Successfully Implement a Recycling Program at Your Workplace