P R S

Household quantities of paint and paint-related products can be dropped off for free at your local Community Recycling Centre, located at Summerhill Waste Management Centre, or at the next Household Chemical CleanOut event.

Empty paint tins can be placed in your yellow lid recycling bin.

Small quantities of dry paint can be disposed of in your red lid general waste bin.

Household quantities - kerbside recycling

All household and office paper and cardboard can be placed in your yellow lid recycling bin.

Pizza boxes can be placed in your yellow lid recycling bin providing all food has been removed. It is okay if oil has stained the cardboard. Most pizza boxes now come with a perforation allowing clean lids to be separated from dirty bases.

Phone books can be recycled in your yellow lid recycling bin. You can cancel phone book deliveries at Directory Select.

Household quantities - recycling beyond the kerb

Paper and cardboard can be dropped off at Summerhill Waste Management Centre (fees and minimum charges apply).

Please visit Recycling Near You for other drop-off locations across Newcastle and surrounding areas.

Commercial quantities

If your workplace or business has large quantities of paper and cardboard to recycle, visit BusinessRecycling.com.au to find suitable collection or pick up service options.

Paper and cardboard can be dropped off at Summerhill Waste Management Centre (fees and minimum charges apply).

Reduce and recycling tips

When shopping, try to avoid products with unnecessary packaging or consider buying in bulk to reduce packaging waste.

Consider buying office paper, paper towel and toilet paper that are made with recycled content. These items are often made from recycled clean office paper and are safe and environmentally friendly.

All rigid (hard) household plastic containers can be placed in your yellow lid recycling bin, regardless of their recycling symbol number.

Rigid household plastics include ice-cream containers, shampoo bottles, butter and yoghurt containers, milk and juice bottles.

You don't have to wash them first, but make sure excess food is scraped or rinsed from them, and no liquids are left in them. Lids can be recycled, but unscrew them first before placing them in the bin separate to the jars/bottles.

Soft plastic packaging, such as plastic wrap, chip packets and biscuit trays cannot be placed in your recycling bin. Please see "Plastic shopping bags and packaging" for recycling options.

Plastic Bags

Unwanted plastic bags can be recycled in the designated collection bins at most large supermarkets and shopping centres.
 

Soft Plastic Packaging

A selection of soft plastic packaging can be recycled in the REDcycle bins at participating Coles supermarkets, including:

• Bread bags
• Biscuit and confectionary packets
• Cereal box liners
• Fresh fruit and vegetable bagsRice and pasta packets and frozen food bags
• Newspaper and magazine wrap
• Unwanted/broken reusable shopping bags (e.g. "Green" bags)
• Single-use plastic shopping bags

Look for the special recycling bins at the front of the store, or find a participating store online.

You can also post your soft plastics to:
RED Group
Attn: Plastic packaging recycling
80C Maffra Street
Coolaroo VIC 3048

The plastics collected through the REDcycle service are recycled into outdoor furniture for primary schools and pre-schools.

Polystyrene foam should be bagged and tied and placed in your red lid general waste bin. Securely bagging polystyrene helps to stop it from escaping into the street during bin servicing, and also reduces the chance of small, broken pieces of polystyrene from floating into the surrounding environment after the waste is tipped at landfill.
 
Residents are advised to place polystyrene towards the top of their red lid bin, so that other heavier wastes push the light-weight polystyrene out of the bin during servicing.
 
Polystyrene must not be placed in your kerbside yellow lid recycling bin. Residents wishing to recycle clean, white polystyrene can phone Hunter Pod Supplies (located at Thornton), on (02) 4966 3959, to organise a drop-off time. Hunter Pod Supplies can also organise to collect polystyrene, however fees apply. The polystyrene is recycled into 'waffle pods' for the building industry.

Awaba Community Recycling Centre, located at 367 Wilton Road, Awaba NSW, also accepts household quantities of polystyrene for recycling.

Printer cartridges* can be recycled through the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark program.

To search for your nearest recycling point, visit the Recycling Near You website. Collection points include all Officeworks stores and participating Australia Post, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, JB Hi-Fi, Office National and Office Products Depot outlets. You can also drop them off in the Community Recycling Stations at selected Council facilities.

*Items accepted via the Cartridges 4 PlanetArk program include:

• Mixed cartridges
• Inkjet cartridges
• Laser cartridges
• Unused cartridges
• Toner cartridges
• Toner bottles
• Fuser and drum units
• Print heads
• Waste hoppers / containers collectors & kits.

The Lions Club of Australia's Recycle for Sight program repairs, regrades and distributes donated reading glasses and sunglasses to people in need at no expense to the recipient. The program has donated over 2.5 million pairs of glasses to third world countries over the last 13 years.

We offer collection points as part of the Recycle for Sight Program. You can donate your unwanted reading glasses and sunglasses in the Community Recycling Stations at our selected facilities.

Please see Sharps, Needles and Syringes

Derelict trolleys affect the aesthetics of our town and can end up in our creeks and rivers, damaging drains and blocking waterways.

For all abandoned trolleys, contact Trolley Tracker on 1800 641 497 or log details directly on the Trolley Tracker website.

Shredded paper can be placed in your yellow-lid recycling bin providing you place it inside a paper bag first. Containing it in a paper bag serves two purposes: it prevents it from escaping into the street when your bin is serviced, and it assists with sorting it at the recycling facility.

Alternatively, there are a few reuse options you may consider, such as:

• Offering the shredded paper for free on forums such as Gumtree or local ‘buy, swap and sell’ pages. People with chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs are sometimes looking for shredded paper for bedding and nesting material.
• Calling local vet clinics or pet shops to see if they need shredded paper for bedding.
• Using shredded paper in your home compost bin or worm farm.

Smoke alarms can be disposed of at the Summerhill Community Recycling Centre.

Steel and tin cans can be placed in your yellow lid recycling bin. You do not need to wash them first but please make sure there is no food or liquid in them.

Larger steel and tin items can be taken to local metal recyclers. Scrap metal is also accepted free of charge at Summerhill Waste Management Centre.