What to Put in Each Bin

The three-bin system allows residents to use a weekly general waste collection and fortnightly recycling and green waste collections (alternating weeks for recycling and green waste). Or, you can also choose to have weekly FOGO collections, with alternating fortnightly landfill and recycling collections.

Each rateable household in Holdfast Bay is entitled to:

• one 240 L green FOGO bin
• one 240 L yellow recycling bin.
• one 140 L red landfill bin.

Anything that grows can go in the green Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) bin:

• all organic matter such as food, grass clippings, flowers, pet hair and plants
• contaminated paper products such as dirty paper towels, tissues, paper napkins, pizza boxes, and 100% clay and paper-based kitty litter
• compostable packaging and food containers such as compostable coffee cups, bamboo, sugarcane or cardboard food containers, and wooden cutlery

Items labelled as 'biodegradable' CANNOT go in the green bin, as they are not able to be industrially composted.

Households with a kerbside bin service are entitled to one kitchen caddy to assist with the disposal of food scraps into the green organic bin. To have a basket delivered to your property please call customer service.

Kitchen caddies and compostable bags

Each rateable property is entitled to one free kitchen caddy and one roll of 75 compostable bags per financial year from the Brighton Civic Centre and Glenelg Library. Proof of residency is required.

All Woolworths and some Foodland and Coles supermarkets offer fruit and vegetable bags that are compostable and fit perfectly in your kitchen caddy.
Currently, all other supermarket produce bags are not compostable.

Items that can go in the recycling yellow lid bin include:

• Glass bottles and jars
• Plastic lids can remain on empty plastic containers including milk bottles and laundry detergent bottles. If plastic lids are larger than 5 cm, such as the lid on peanut butter containers, they can go into your recycling bin separately. They do not need to be collected in another container.
• Metal lids, including beer bottle tops, can be placed separately into the recycling bin as they will be picked up by the magnets at our Southern Material Recycling Facility (SMRF).
• Paper
• Cardboard
• All rigid plastic containers (e.g. plastic drink bottles, detergent bottles, yoghurt, ice cream, strawberry, plastic planting pots, biscuit trays and margarine containers)
• Clean aluminium foil and trays scrunched to the size of your fist
• Tins
• Milk and fruit juice cartons (liquid paper board)
• Aluminium cans

There are very few items that now need to go in the general waste/landfill red lid bin: disposable nappies, sanitary items, soft plastics (such as plastic bags, film, and wrappers), polystyrene, broken crockery, and broken glass.

For electronic waste, hazardous and other tricky waste, see our Tricky and Hazardous Waste page. Or for very large items each rateable household is entitled to one free Hard Rubbish collection per year.