Alerts

Mixed recycling bins

Your mixed recycling bin has a yellow lid.

We collect your mixed recycling bin every 2 weeks, on the same day as your general rubbish, glass recycling and food and garden organics bin.

Some large apartment buildings have mixed recycling collected weekly

To find out when your recycling collection will be, enter your address below. 

Enter your address

For a printed waste collection calendar contact us on 9240 1111.

How to use my mixed recycling bin

Your mixed recycling bin is for:

  • Plastic bottles and containers
  • Paper and cardboard
  • Aluminium cans and foil
  • Steel cans

What can and cannot go in my mixed recycling bin?

  • You can put these items in your mixed recycling bin:

    • cardboard and office paper
    • newspapers and magazines
    • phone books
    • books (with covers removed)
    • pizza boxes (with no food waste)
    • single use / disposable paper dinnerware (plates and bowls, with no food waste)
    • aluminium foil, trays and cans (remove any food, scrunch foil into a ball)
    • steel cans (empty)
    • aerosol cans (empty with plastic nozzle removed)
    • rigid plastic packaging including bottles and containers
    • small plastic plant pots

    Use our online A to Z guide to waste and recycling to find out how to recycle, reuse or safely dispose of a wide range of common household items that may not be listed here.

  • The following items also cannot go in your recycling bin:

    • soft plastics (plastic bags, bread or pasta bags, plastic wrap)
    • any items in plastic bags
    • batteries (take these to a household battery recycling drop off point which you can find on our Recycling stations page)
    • long-life milk, soy milk, and juice cartons (foil-lined cardboard packaging)
    • expanded polystyrene packaging (cups, plates, and trays)
    • clothing, shoes, blankets or other textiles
    • nappies
    • toys
    • drinking glasses, ceramics, or Pyrex
    • single-use / disposable cups (includes plastic, paper, and bio-cups)
    • single-use / disposable plastic dinnerware (plates, bowls, and cutlery)
    • napkins, tissues, paper towel or shredded paper (place these items in your compost bin or worm farm)
    • e-waste

    Putting incorrect items in your recycling bin is called contamination. Contamination can be a safety hazard and makes it harder to turn your recycling into new things. Find out more about contamination on our Recycle Right page. 

  • Soft plastics are the kinds of plastic packaging that you can easily scrunch in your hand, like bread bags, food wrappers and chip packets.

    Soft plastics damage the machines that sort your recycling because they can get stuck in them.

    Put soft plastic in your general rubbish bin instead.

  • Putting your recycling in the bin loose ensures that it can be recycled. Recycling in plastic bags may contain contamination or hazardous items, which is a safety risk to the workers who sort your recycling. To protect worker safety and the quality of recycling, bagged recycling is sent to landfill.

    Put your recycling in the bin loose.

    You can use a basket, plastic tub or cardboard box to collect your recycling before emptying it into the bin loose.

    • Glass bottles and jars go in your glass recycling bin (purple lid)
    • Take eligible drink containers, like aluminium cans and glass or plastic bottles to your nearest Container Deposit Scheme refund point. You get a 10 cent refund for every eligible container. Find your nearest refund point on the CDS website.
    • Flatten or rip up cardboard boxes
    • Squash empty plastic bottles and containers
    • Only buy what you need and reduce the amount of packaging you buy

    If you still have too much recycling to fit in your bin, you can wait until your bin is collected, request a larger or extra bin (charges apply), or you can take your excess recycling to a transfer station. You can find out about nearby transfer stations. 

  • Your recyclables are valuable. Your mixed recycling goes to Visy Recycling’s materials recovery facility in Heidelberg. It is separated and sorted into different material types like plastic, cardboard and metal. This is processed and used to make new products like cardboard boxes, plastic containers and steel cans.

     Learn what Visy does with our recycling

There is a waste management charge in your rates that covers recycling collection. You can learn more about this charge on our Understand your rates page. The charge also includes garbage, food and garden organics (FOGO), and hard waste collection. You can find out more about these services on our Bins and collection services page.

You can find out more about how much waste we are collecting and which companies hold waste collection contracts with us on our Council services data page.


Can I change the size of my mixed recycling bin?

The available sizes for mixed recycling are 120 litres, 240 litres (standard) or 360 litres.

You can now change the size of your mixed recycling bin if the standard bin size is not suitable for your household. There will be a $69.45 changeover fee, but your waste charge will change. Smaller bins cost less and larger bins cost more.

  • Put your bins out by 5:30am on your bin collection day. You can also put your bins out the night before.

    Put your bin on the kerb at the edge of your street. Make sure the bin is facing the street and that there are no objects within 30cm (such as a car, tree or another bin).

    Any waste left beside or on top of the bin will not be collected.

    If your street is a court or cul-de-sac, place your bins along the straight part of the kerb.

    Below are some diagrams that show this placement.

  • Information about how to change your bin or get a new bin ison our Bin delivery, repairs and replacements page. This includes damaged bins, lost or stolen bins, changing your bin size, or ordering a bin for your property.

Shared bins at multi-unit developments and apartment sites

We provide shared bins for multi-unit and apartment sites across Merri-bek. These are for use by all residents at the site. Most shared recycling bins have 240 litres of capacity, double the size of the standard 120 litre recycling bins. One shared bin is big enough to service 2 to 3 units.

  • To ensure that everyone at a site can effectively use shared bins you need to:

    • Store the bins in a central location so that everyone can access the bins
    • Agree who will take out the bins for collection and bring them in
    • Assess if the capacity of the different bins is meeting the requirements of the site. Discuss this with your owners corporation or body corporate
    • Ensure shared bins do not weigh more than 30kg and are not overfilled as we will not be able to collect them

  • To reduce the amount of general waste produced at your development you can: