What goes in your recycling bin
Your recycling bin (yellow lid) is for common household packaging items typically bought at a supermarket and found in your kitchen, bathroom or laundry.
Yes - these items can go in your recycling bin
Only accepted paper, cardboard, hard plastic containers, glass bottles and jars, aluminium and steel cans go in your recycling bin. Put these items loose in your recycling bin.
Hard plastic bottles and containers
- Milk, cordial, water, soft drink bottles (leave lids on)
- Meat trays, biscuit trays
- Takeaway containers
- Cream bottles
- Yoghurt and ice cream containers
- Margarine and butter containers
- Cleaning, detergent and shampoo bottles
- Strawberry, berry punnets
Paper and cardboard
- Paper (postcard size or larger)
- Newspaper, magazines (remove plastic packaging and put in your rubbish bin)
- Milk, juice cartons
- Advertising material, junk mail, flyers
- Butcher’s paper, fish-and-chip paper
- Greeting cards, envelopes, wrapping paper
- Books, notepads
- Paper bags
- Cardboard boxes (please flatten)
- Cereal boxes, tissue boxes
- Pizza boxes, egg cartons
- Paper plates (uncoated)
Glass bottles and jars (empty, cleaning not required, leave lids on)
- Sauce bottles
- Drinks containers
- Jars from jams, spreads
- Coffee jars
- Salsa, pasta sauce jars
Steel cans
- Fruit tins
- Vegetable cans
- Pet food tins
- Aerosol cans (must be empty)
Aluminium cans and foil
- Aluminium foil (scrunch into a ball)
- Aluminium trays
- Soft drink cans
- Aerosol cans (must be empty)
No - these items cannot go in your recycling bin
- Long-life milk and juice containers (UHT, Tetra Pak)
- Batteries, mobile phones (Find where to recycle these: Batteries and e-waste)
- Any electronic item with a plug, battery or power cord (Find where to recycle these: Batteries and e-waste)
- Plastic bags, plastic film, soft plastics (Find where to recycle these: A-Z guide to recycling in Monash)
- Shredded paper, paper smaller than postcard size (these can go in your food and garden waste bin)
- Shopping receipts
- Medicine blister packets (Find where to recycle these: A-Z guide to recycling in Monash)
- Paper towel, tissues (these can go in your food and garden waste bin)
- Ceramics mugs, plates, cutlery
- Clothing, footwear, toys (Find where to recycle these: A-Z guide to recycling in Monash)
- Drinking glass, window glass, bakeware (for example, Pyrex)
- Toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes (Find where to recycle these: A-Z guide to recycling in Monash)
- Coat hangers, bread tags
- Food scraps, garden waste (these can go in your food and garden waste bin)
- Light globes, printer cartridges
- Takeaway coffee cups, lids, straws (Find where to recycle these: A-Z guide to recycling in Monash)
- Nappies, wet wipes, pet waste (Find where to recycle these: A-Z guide to recycling in Monash)
- Wooden, timber items
- Waxed cardboard
- Polystyrene (can be taken to the Monash Recycling and Waste Centre)
Visit our pages for more information: landfill bin, food and garden waste bin and the A-Z guide to recycling in Monash.
Posters
To request posters, please contact Sustainable Monash on 9518 3555 or email sustainability@monash.vic.gov.au
What happens to your recycling
The contents of your recycling bin are processed by VISY at its material recovery facility. Accepted items are sorted into streams of paper, plastic, glass, steel and aluminium. Contaminated items (items that shouldn’t be in the recycling bin) are manually removed and sent to landfill.
Visy is a packaging company that uses accepted items to create new packaging items made from recycled materials, such as cardboard boxes, water bottles, glass bottles and jars, beverage cans and pet food tins.