It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar for many Australians: you stand at the kitchen bin, holding a used takeaway coffee cup or a scrunched-up chip packet, and wonder, ‘Which bin does this go in?’
You make your best guess, toss it in the yellow-lid recycling bin, and feel a little virtuous for doing your bit for the planet. But what if that one small mistake—putting the wrong item in the recycling—means your entire street’s recycling ends up in the landfill?
That’s precisely what happened recently on the Cassowary Coast, south of Cairns, and it’s a sobering reminder of how a straightforward error can have a significant environmental impact.
A video shared by the local council showed an entire recycling truck being dumped in a landfill, all because of contamination from a few wrongly binned items—think plastic bags, food scraps, and other non-recyclables.
The whole batch can be deemed contaminated when non-recyclable items like soft plastics or food scraps are mixed with recyclables.
This means it can’t be processed at the recycling facility and must be sent to a landfill instead. It’s a classic case of one bad apple spoiling the bunch.
Councillor Ellen Jessup, who spoke out about the incident, explained that the region had recently changed its bin system, swapping ‘wet waste’ and ‘dry waste’ bins for the now-familiar red (general waste) and yellow (recycling) bins.
The change has confused some residents about what goes where, and breaking old habits, like bagging recyclables, is proving tricky.
‘If we’re going to bag things and put them into the recycling bin, it’s contaminated from the start, because the soft plastics cannot go into the recycling,’ Jessup said.
‘If we can educate people to put loose items in, such as cardboard, tins, bottles, those sorts of things, that’s a big outcome and it cuts down the amount of soft plastics that shouldn’t be there.’
According to the Cassowary Coast Council, these are the top offenders found in the wrong bins:
- Soft plastics (chip packets, cling wrap, bread bags)
- Food scraps (banana peels, leftovers)
- Tiny items (bread tags, bottle caps)
- Hazardous items (batteries, chemicals)
- Bagged recyclables (recyclables should always be loose)
And it’s not just a problem in Far North Queensland. A national survey by waste management company Veolia found that Aussies are stumped more than 40 per cent of the time when deciding which bin to use.
Some of the most confusing items include:
- Coffee cups: 77 per cent of people don’t know these go in the red general waste bin (the lining makes them unrecyclable).
- Vapes and e-cigarettes: 78 per cent are unsure. These contain batteries and should never go in kerbside bins—look for special collection points.
- Bamboo and wood cutlery: 63 per cent think they’re recyclable, but they belong in general waste.
- Biodegradable plastic bags: 58 per cent are confused, but these also go into the general waste category.
If you’re ever unsure, there’s help at hand. The free Recycle Mate app lets you search for any product and tells you exactly which bin it belongs in, tailored to your local council’s rules. You can even enter your address for the most accurate information.
Have you ever been confused about what goes in which bin? Do you have any tips or tricks for remembering the rules? Or maybe you’ve spotted some common mistakes in your neighbourhood? Share your thoughts in the comments below and help us recycle smarter together!
Also read: How you could win $10,000 just by recycling—Aussies everywhere are cashing in!
