When you pop an empty shampoo bottle into your yellow-lidded bin or an egg carton into your blue-lidded bin, do you ever wonder where it ends up?

The Northern Beaches has a four-bin collection system to encourage waste separation at the source, giving us the best chance to recycle and reuse valuable resources you may consider household waste. 

Here’s where your recycling goes and what happens to it:

Your yellow bin

The contents of your yellow-lidded recycling bin are sent to IQRenew, an Australian Material Recycling Facility (MRF) on the Central Coast for sorting.

Several methods are used to separate plastic, aluminium/steel and glass containers.

Plastic is used to make new products including wheelie bins, furniture, carpet and water bottles. Contaminated plastics and soft plastics cannot currently be recycled from the yellow bin.

Steel, aluminium and glass are recycled to be made into new items. For example, large pieces of glass can be used in new bottles and jars and smaller pieces are crushed to make washed glass sand used in road base, pool filters and drainage materials.

Your blue bin

The contents of your blue-lidded paper recycling bin are transported to Visy, another Australian company, for sorting and sending to paper mills to produce packaging, cardboard boxes and other paper products such as recycled paper towels and toilet paper.

Your green bin

Australian Native Landscapes at Kimbriki Resource Recovery Centre turn residential and commercial customer’s vegetation and wood waste into a variety of high quality woodchip, mulch and soil improvers after it has been shredded and composted for six months. 

Want to learn more?

We have a newly created waste dashboard to view how much waste is generated in your suburb and you can even compare it with the rest of the Northern Beaches.

The dashboard shows you what makes up your waste (based on an average person in your suburb) - how much of it is garbage, paper, containers and vegetation. It also shows how seasonal trends affect the waste that is generated. It’s a great way to see if you could reduce the kinds of waste you’re generating.

What can you do to help?

• Check out our Bin Guide to see what can go in your bins. It’s important you put the correct item in the correct bin to stop contamination.
• Keep an eye on our upcoming waste reduction workshops like Composting and Worms Workshop, Reusable Nappies and a Preserving Excess Veg and Fruit Webinar. Kimbriki also runs workshops at their Eco House and Garden on topics like composting, organic veggie gardening and more. 

• Check out our Northern Beaches Reuse and Recycling Map where you can find your nearest clothing bin, retail op shop and other outlets accepting goods for free
• From ‘A’ for air conditioners to ‘Z’ for zip lock bags, use our A to Z guide to work out where you can recycle or how you can reuse a whole heap of different items
• Urge local businesses you know to refuse single use plastic bags, bottles, straws and coffee cups with our ‘Swap for Good’ program.