Recycling not only helps conserve natural resources and reduce waste, it also sustains the environment for future generations. You can make a difference! Learn to avoid common recycling mistakes and use best practice for keeping your recycling clean and correct. Here are 11 important tips to remember before you recycle, and make it an environmentally friendly habit!

11 Recycling Tips that you should know!

AVOID SINGLE USE PLASTIC: bring your own water bottle, coffee cup and drinking straw! Disposable cups, plastics bottles and straws are hard to recycle, so they often end up in landfill. Make your daily drink eco-friendly and check out Strathfield’s Responsible Cafes for discounts!

DO NOT BAG YOUR RECYCLABLES: soft plastics CANNOT go in your yellow bin! Placing your recyclables in a garbage bag before you put them in the yellow bin, will ruin your good recycling work. Drop soft plastics and plastic bags in RedCycle bins located at local supermarkets.

RECYCLING FURNITURE: before booking a Council Clean Up, look for furniture and other household items that can be refurbished and then contact The Bower Reuse and Repair Centre for free collection and recycling.

DO NOT PUT CLOTHES IN YELLOW BINS: your unwanted clothing can be recycled and reused in many ways, but DO NOT through them in your regular yellow bin recycling collection. Look for donation spots that will take your old clothing and get them reused, recycled or upcycled. You can also try clothes swapping with friends and neighbours! It’s fun!

REDUCE AND COMPOST FOOD WASTE: about 50% of all residential waste bins are filled with food waste! Check out “Love Food, Hate Waste” for tips on reducing food waste, and make use of Council’s 50% discount at Compost Revolution for Strathfield residents.

DO NOT PUT BATTERIES AND ELECTRONIC ITEMS IN WASTE BINS: these items can cause serious harm to the environment and people involved in the collection or handling of recyclables, especially our Material Recovery Facility workers. Take them to free drop off points or to Council’s Waste related events. Check Council’s Recycling and Resource Recovery page and sign up to the eNews to keep updated on future events.

BIGGER IS BETTER, SO CHECK THE SIZE: items smaller than a credit card CANNOT be placed in yellow recycling bins, since they can fall off from the Material Recovery Facility system. This means that shredded paper cannot be recycled in yellow bin stream. For example, if you want to recycle the “ring pulls” from soda aluminium cans, or metal lids, it is better to collect a big amount and place it in a metal container. If you collect plastic lids for recycling, place them in a plastic container. Or leave plastic lids on plastic bottles after squeezing the air off.  

RECYCLABLES MUST BE EMPTY, CLEAN AND DRY: food contamination is a risk for human health and for recycling. Always remember that all containers should be emptied, cleaned and dry before placing them into your yellow recycling bin.

TAKEAWAY COFFEE CUPS DO NOT GO IN YELLOW BINS: takeaway cups and coffee pods CANNOT be recycled in your yellow recycling bin. Takeaway coffee cups have a wax coating, that stops your coffee from soaking through your cup, making them not suitable for recycling. Only some lids (the ones with the recycle symbol) can be recycled. Place coffee cups in the red waste bin for landfill, otherwise they can contaminate tonnes of recyclable items!

FLATTEN YOUR CARDBOARD BOXES: flattening your cardboard boxes allows more space in the yellow recycling bins and also helps recycling facilities to process cardboard in their system.

JOIN CIRCULAR ECONOMY: When buying new products, look for upcycled options or products with recyclable contents on them. Buy from companies that are environmental friendly. Try to share or swap instead of buying new products. Remember that, when thinking about “REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE”, reducing always comes first, and then we try to reuse or recycle!