Garbage and Recycling Collections
Garbage and recycling collection days
PLEASE REMEMBER
- Place your bin on the kerbside/roadside the night before collection day. Some property owners are asked to place their bins on the opposite side of the property to make the collection schedule more efficient.
- Building materials, pipes, wires, planks of wood and concrete are not domestic waste and must not be placed in your garbage bin. If you have any waste you wish to dispose of that is not domestic waste, please contact Council for advice on disposal.
- The lifting arms on our vehicles have a weight capacity of 85 kg and cannot lift over that amount. Large items (eg concrete) can create havoc with our compaction unit and therefore cannot be collected.
- Put loose plastic bags and non-recyclable paper inside another before placing in bins. This helps stop them from "flying away" as the bin is emptied.
Darlington Point
- Garbage collection: Tuesday mornings
- Recycling (yellow lid): Every second Friday - Recycling Schedule Calendar
- Food and Organic Waste (FOGO) collection (green lid) will be available from 1 July 2023
Coleambally
- Garbage collection: Wednesday mornings
- Recycling (yellow lid): Every second Friday - Recycling Schedule Calendar
- Food and Organic Waste (FOGO) collection (green lid) will be available from 1 July 2023
Coleambally Waste Depot also has a Community Recycling Centre. It is open on Tuesday and Thursday from 9 am to 11 am and on Sunday from 2 pm to 5 pm.
Jerilderie
- Garbage collection: Thursday mornings
- Kerbside recycling will be available from 1 July 2023
- Food and Organic Waste (FOGO) collection (green lid) will be available from 1 July 2023
Bulky waste and green waste collections
Council holds various bulky waste collection days throughout the year. More information
Tips for effective recycling
The following items can be recycled in the yellow-lidded recycling bins. Please rinse out the items.
- All paper, cardboard, newspaper, magazines and advertising brochures (not shredded)
- Glass bottles and jars
- Juice and milk cartons
- Rigid plastic containers: Numbers 1-6
- Steel cans, including aerosols
- Aluminium cans, trays and foil
The following items cannot be recycled in the yellow-lidded recycling bins.
- NO plastic bags or wrap
- NO polystyrene
- NO crockery or glassware
- NO electrical appliances
- NO clothing or linen
- NO light bulbs or batteries - take these to our Council offices/CRCs at Coleambally and Jerilderie landfills
- NO food or garden waste
- NO nappies
- NO items tied up in plastic bags
Where does my recycling go?
This information is provided by Kurrajong Recycling in Wagga Wagga.
Australian and international markets for recycled materials determine where we can sell your recycled materials. Australia has few manufacturing companies that can use recycled material so much of the nation’s recycling must be sold overseas. As some of our buyers on-sell our materials we do not know all the end users of our products.
Our glass bottles and jars are intentionally broken during the sorting process and some is sold to a Brisbane company to make new containers. Most of our glass is processed into crushed glass and sold to councils and businesses for road making, pipe-laying backfill, and site stabilisation around buildings or sites such as sewage treatment works.
Victorian, NSW, Queensland and international companies buy our number 1, 2 and 5 plastics, which are the most saleable plastics. These companies may process and on-sell these plastics, or make new products such as pallets, irrigation pipes, soft drink, shampoo and detergent bottles, outdoor furniture, carpet fibres, fleece jackets, fence posts, bollards, plumbing pipe fittings, and compost bins.
As Australia has no rolling mills and very few smelting facilities, companies on-sell our aluminium to South Korean and other international companies for rolling and smelting and then reuse by industry. Recycled aluminium is used to make aluminium cans, automotive engines, window and door frames, saucepans and other homewares.
Our steel cans are purchased by a company in Albury that on-sells to foundries in Australia, NZ, Asia and India. And an international company that distributes steel to their Australian steel mills and international customers. A local metal business is the sole buyer for all our steel scrap metal. Steel is recycled into new steel cans, cars, construction steel, aeroplanes and train tracks. Unlike recycled plastics, paper and cardboard; steel and aluminium can be recycled indefinitely.
Currently three companies buy our bales of cardboard for pulping and remanufacture into new products. These materials are processed locally and abroad and used in manufacturing cardboard boxes, paper bags, egg cartons, cereal boxes, newspaper, toilet rolls and kitty litter. The layers of paper used in its construction make cardboard more durable than paper.
We process paper into bales of shredded (from our document destruction service) and un-shredded paper, mixed-colour paper or white paper. Our paper is purchased and processed by a number of Australian and international companies. Some shredded paper is sold locally for packaging and animal bedding. Paper and cardboard are recycled into similar products such as cardboard boxes, fruit and egg cartons, cereal boxes, newspaper, toilet rolls, insulation, kitty litter, and small animal bedding and litter.
E-waste contains large amounts of plastic, precious metals including gold, silver, platinum, nickel, zinc, aluminium and copper. Most of our disassembled e-waste is taken to Melbourne. The cabling, circuit boards, glass, metals and plastics are then processed or on-sold as raw materials for making new products in Australia and overseas. Our dismantled Perspex TV and computer screens are used by a Wagga Wagga business.
Hopefully Australia will support the growth of local industries and ‘close the resource loop’ within our country and reduce our dependency on overseas markets. But until then, the economic viability of Australia’s recycling industry depends on being able to sell into both Australian and international markets.
How does Kurrajong Recycling process my recycling?
Your items are sorted from your yellow-lid bin mechanically and by hand into glass, paper and cardboard, three different plastics (numbers 1, 2 and 5 as these are easily sold), aluminium and steel. They are then compressed into bales that are tied with wire.
Glass is intentionally broken during the sorting process (this is called cullet for making bottles and jars) or may go through the crushing plant (crushed glass for road building) and stored in piles. Glass is loaded directly into truck trailers. These products are then sold nationally and internationally to manufacturers and or on-sellers.
Non-recyclable items such as plastic bags, bedding and hoses, which are called ‘contamination’, are removed from the conveyor belt by hand. At great expense ($135/tonne), we send a semi-truck load or two each day to landfill.
Related Pages
Waste Depots (Landfills/Tips)
Council operates waste disposal sites (waste depots/landfills) at Coleambally, Darlington Point and Jerilderie.
Bulky Waste and Green Waste Kerbside Collection
We hold an annual bulky waste and green waste kerbside collection.