Give These Simple Slip-ups Swerve To Help Our Region Recycle Right

Waste workers holding acceptable recycling items at a landfill facility, with the

As we bid farewell to another bumper winter season here in the Snowy Monaro, Council's calling on locals and visitors alike to brush up on their recycling dos-and-don'ts, and help us bring down recycling contamination rates across the region.

Whether you're new, passing through, or it's just been a while since you read through the rules – Council's here to help you do the right thing with your yellow-lidded bin.

Simple slip-ups cost local ratepayers and our local high-country environment alike, pushing up processing and handling costs, sending tonnes of otherwise recyclable material to landfill, and filling up our limited local waste facility space more quickly.

In serious cases, hazardous material in kerbside bins puts local people's lives at risk.

paper and cardboard, steel and aluminium cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and containers

Keep it simple

Only recycle paper and cardboard, steel and aluminium cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and containers.

A woman demonstrates incorrect recycling disposal with newspaper and bottles in a cardboard box

Keep it loose

Keep everything loose in your kerbside bin. Empty bags and boxes completely, and put non-recyclable containers in the red-lidded rubbish bin.

While bags and boxes make organising your recycling easy, if they aren't emptied, they contaminate the whole load of recycling.

A waste facility worker demonstrates some of the hazards posed by the incorrect disposal of hazardous waste in recycling bins.

Keep it safe

Asbestos, batteries, chemicals, biohazardous material and other hazardous waste need to be disposed of safely and responsibly. Protect your own health, and help keep your local garbos safe and well in their work.

This means keeping strapping, hoses, netting, wires, and building materials out of our recycling too. These materials damage and destroy processing equipment.

A waste facility worker holds up a bundle of plastic shopping bags with a red

Keep out soft plastics

This means all plastic bags – no matter the symbol or claims on the packaging – as well as things like cling-wrap, chip packets and bread bags.

A collection of small items that must be kept out of recycling bins, including a peg, lighter, cap, lid, cork, and bread tag - with credit card for scale.

Keep out small items

Nothing smaller than a credit card can be recycled. Lids and other little bits and pieces belong in your red-lidded rubbish bin.

A gloved set of hands scrapes out old leftover spaghetti into a food scrap bin on a residential kitchen counter.

Keep it clean

Wipe or rinse the leftover food and drink from all containers before putting them in your recycling bin. Keep out all food scraps, nappies and soiled paper.

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