Your recycle bin

You can recycle:

• Plastic bottles and containers from your kitchen, bathroom and laundry.
• Clean paper and cardboard. 
• Aluminium and steel cans.

Glass cannot be recycled in your yellow-lidded recycling bin. Please take your glass to one of our Pass on Glass sites or place it in your rubbish bin.

You can place these items in your recycling bin:

• Aerosol cans
• Aluminium foil (clean of food)
• Cans, tin and aluminium (empty and clean)
• Cardboard
• Deodorant cans and bottles (empty)
• Egg cartons
• Envelopes (no window)
• Envelopes (with window; plastic window removed)
• Fruit punnets (clear plastic)
• Greeting cards
• Ice cream containers (empty)
• Juice bottles (plastic, with no handle)
• Magazines
• Margarine containers (clean))
• Milk bottles (plastic #2), lids removed and placed into your rubbish bin
• Newspaper
• Office paper
• Plastic containers (rigid plastic)
• Pizza boxes (clean of food and oils)
• Sauce bottles (plastic, empty)
• Shampoo and conditioner bottles (empty)
• Takeaway plastic containers (plastic, clean)
• Telephone books
• Tissue boxes with plastic removed
• Toilet rolls (empty)
• Wrapping paper
• Yoghurt containers (clean)

By knowing what to recycle we can all:

• reduce recycled items going to landfill
• reduce costs to council and all ratepayers
• avoid contamination charges
• help the environment.

Simple habits can make the recycling more efficient and sustainable.

In Ballarat it is best to prepare recyclables by:

• Rinsing recyclable containers.
• Breaking up or flattening small cardboard boxes.
• Keeping recycling loose: don’t place your recyclables in plastic bags.
• Keeping plastic bags out of your recycling bin. Due to the pause of the REDcycle program, residents will need to place their soft plastics in their general household waste. Please note: Soft plastics are unable to be recycled via the yellow-lid mixed recyclables bin.
• Taking your glass to our pass on glass sites and keeping glass out of your recycling bin.
• Only placing plastics from your bathroom, kitchen and laundry in your recycling bin.

Sustainability Victoria has tips on how to reduce waste at home.

Emma from our waste team has some tips on how to reduce supermarket waste in the video below.