We have some challenges with our public bins. They are often overflowing and heavily contaminated with things that can’t be recycled like bags of rubbish, coffee cups, and food in packaging. When this happens, the bin contents may be sent to landfill.

As a Darebin resident, ratepayer or visitor, you probably observe and use the bins. We want to get your thoughts on how we can fix these issues.

Contamination in recycling is manually removed by staff working at a conveyor belt – that is, staff remove the contamination by hand. When there’s too much contamination, this is dangerous and time consuming for workers. When this happens, the contents of the bin go to landfill to reduce OHS risks for staff and to avoid contaminants going further into the system.

Examples of when this happens are when the recycling bin is full of loose food, liquids, or shredded items, or if it is full of plastic bags and soft plastics.