Recycling Across Victoria Is About To Get Easier – And You’ll Get a New Bin Too

The question of what can go in which wheelie bin seems to get more complicated every year, but the Victorian government is determined to simplify things by standardising a pioneering four-bin system across the state by 2030. We’ll be the first in the country to do so.

In the coming years, all Victorians will be able to sort their household waste by a consistent colour system. All glass will go into a purple bin, food and garden waste into a green bin, mixed recyclables into a yellow bin and everything else into a red bin.

In response to community needs and industry capability, the new system means Victorians will be able to chuck used food wrappers – even pizza boxes and disposable coffee cups – as well as plastic bags into mixed recyclables bins.

A newly funded facility will turn some of the hardest to recycle items, such as milk cartons, into building materials, while another will turn an estimated 14,000 tonnes of green waste into soil additives for the farming industry each year.

From next year there will also be a few things we don’t need to worry about binning at all, as single-use plastics, which make up about a third of the state’s rubbish, are banned. From Febuary 1, plastic cutlery, straws, cotton tips and polystyrene containers will be blacklisted across the state.

The state government says these changes will keep us on track to divert at least 80 per cent of our waste from landfill by 2030.