Using Your Bins

Your yellow lid bin is for recycling. It is collected from the kerb fortnightly, on the alternate week to your green waste bin.

Items that can be placed in your recycling bin include:

• Aluminium cans and pie trays
• Aluminium foil that has been scrunched into a ball, but no foil packets (e.g. chip packets)
• Glass bottles and jars (lids unscrewed)
• Liquid paperboard containers (e.g. fresh and longlife milk and juice cartons, including those with foil linings)
• Paper and cardboard, including empty pizza boxes (no food traces)
• ​All rigid household plastic bottles and containers (e.g. icecream, yoghurt and takeaway containers; detergent, shampoo and drink bottles; drinking straws and bottle caps; biscuit, cake and meat trays (no foam trays); empty CD and DVD cases)
• Steel cans.

Items that are NOT accepted in your recycling bin include:

• Plastic bags
• ​Polystyrene/foam
• Clothing, material or rope
• Nappies
• Window, mirror and windscreen glass
• Crockery and glassware
• Timber and building materials
• Garden and food waste
• Vegetable and motor oil
• Batteries.

• Don't bag your recycling! Recyclables in plastic bags cannot be sorted at the sorting facility and are redirected to landfill. What a waste!
• Shredded paper is difficult to collect if placed loose in your recycling bin and may escape into the street during servicing. Non-shredded paper is preferable, but if shredding is necessary, consider placing it in a paper bag to contain it.
• Unscrew lids from glass bottles before recycling them. Both the bottle and the metal/plastic lids can be placed in your recycling bin. By removing the lid from the bottle, the machinery at the sorting facility can separate the glass and the metal/plastic into the correct piles.
• You don't need to wash your recyclables, but please make sure they are empty of food or liquid before recycling them. A quick rinse of milk bottles can help prevent bin odours during the warmer months.
• Aluminium foil can be recycled if it is scrunched into a ball first. If it is left unscrunched, the machinery at the sorting facility will mistake it for paper and direct it to the wrong area. For this reason, foil packets (e.g. chip packets) should be placed in your general waste bin as they will flatten out in the recycling truck.

Your green lid bin is for green waste. It is collected from the kerb fortnightly, on the alternate week to your recycling bin.

Items that can be placed in your green waste bin include:

• Garden prunings
• Grass clippings
• Leaves and bark
• Small branches and twigs
• Weeds.

Items that are NOT accepted in your green waste bin include:

• Animal droppings
• Bags of any type, including plastic bags, potting mix bags, hessian or geotextile bags
• Bagged garden waste
• Clumps of root material (eg cocos palms and bougainvilleas)
• ​​​Food and kitchen scraps (including fruit and vegetables)
• Soil, potting mix, bricks or construction waste
• Trees stumps and large limbs
• General rubbish and recyclables.

Note: Residents can dispose of additional green waste at Summerhill Waste Management Centre free of charge using a bulk waste self-haul voucher or by paying the applicable disposal fee if they have already used their bulk waste entitlements for the year.
 

Your red lid bin is for general waste. It is collected from the kerb weekly.

Items that are appropriate to place in your general waste bin include:

• Food and kitchen scraps
• Polystyrene/foam
• ​Dust/ashes (these must be wrapped/bagged first)
• Animal droppings
• Nappies, sanitary and incontinence products
• Soft plastics, including shopping bags, bread bags and frozen food bags, cling wrap, biscuit packet wrappers, confectionary wrappers, mail satchels and bubble wrap
• Soft foil packaging, such as chip packets and sauce sachets
• ​Broken or damaged household items that can't be repaired or donated, such as: Crockery and ceramics
• Glass kitchenware, such as wine glasses, drinking glasses, Pyrex and other heat-treated glassware (wrapped). Single-use glass bottles and jars that food and drink is packaged in can be placed in your recycling bin, as it is not heat-treated like glass kitchenware
• Mirrors and small amounts of window glass (wrapped)
• Toys
• Clothing
• Bric-a-brac.

Items that are NOT accepted in your general waste bin include:

• Asbestos (see problem wastes)
• Building and construction waste (see problem wastes) 
• chemicals (see problem wastes) 
• Electronic waste (see Problem wastes)
• Needles and syringes
• Oil (see problem wastes)
• Paint (see problem wastes)
• Hazardous materials.

Placement

The following points provide guidance on the placement of bins for collection:

• Leave your bins out for collection on the evening before collection day, or prior to 5am on collection day
• Do not place rubbish on top of or beside the bin
• Place the bins on clear ground at the road verge next to your driveway and a minimum of 1 metre away from any vehicles
• Bins should be placed on the footpath close to the edge of the kerb so as not to obstruct the footpath for users or if there is no kerb, on the side of your driveway or on the gravel/grass road verge close to the road
• Make sure your bins are accessible
• Place your bin beside each other with a space of around 1 metre between each bin
• The handle should face your property, and the City of Newcastle logo should face the road
• Only put the right material in each bin - some materials can damage collection equipment, injure workers or contaminate the process. Bins cannot be collected if they contain incorrect material.

Non-Collection

On occasion bins may not be emptied and this could be the result any number of factors, these include roadworks being conducted, cars parked in front of the bin, items stuck in the bin or the bin may have simply been missed. In these instances please contact us to make alternative arrangements.

Instances where bins may not be collected may occur due to the following:

• Overfull bins – overfull bins expose the driver to an increased risk of rubbish falling onto the road or footpath as they complete the service and the contractor is not obligated to collect any bin that is overfull, excess waste will need to be disposed of by the resident
• Contaminated bins – the collection services for recycling and green waste is specifically for those waste  items, mixing other types of material into your recycling or green waste bin will result in the bin not being collected and the resident being responsible for the disposal of those items
• Non-Council bins – We require residents to only use waste, recycling or green waste bins that display the logo of City of Newcastle, bins not displaying this logo will not be collected and the resident being responsible for the disposal of those items
• Unpaid account bins - We offer a range of additional waste services to suit the needs of residents.  The additional waste services are charged at different rates for excess and upgrade bins. If these accounts are not paid the additional waste service will not be collected. If you have an unpaid account or you are unsure if you have an account bin please contact 4974 2000.