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Recycle Right & 360L Upsize

Supersize Your Recycling

Upsize to a 360L bin

Bigger AND better!

Supersize your recycling and swap your 240L recycling bin to the 360L bin for the same annual charge. Please note that a one-off changeover fee of $34.50 will apply.

Recycling is one of the easiest ways to keep material out of landfill. The 360L bin is ideal for households larger than three people and any recycling champions who have an overflowing recycling bin. For the same annual fee, you'll gain an extra 120L of recycling space!

Make the switch today.

Recycle Right

Townsville residents recycle approximately 15,000 tonnes of household packaging materials every year. This is great work, however our bin health checks across Townsville have shown that each year we are still sending more than 10,000 tonnes of recyclable material to landfill through our general waste bins.

It’s time to look at how we can work together to keep improving our recycling efforts and recovering these valuable materials.

As well as understanding what can and can't be recycled, we ask that your recyclables are free from food and other contaminants, never bagged, and free from broken glass or other hazardous materials.

Check out the tips below to help you recycle right!

Keep out Small Items

Don’t place anything smaller than a credit card into your yellow lid recycling bin, including:

Bottle lids and caps
Bread tags
Plastic and paper clothing tags.

Keep it Simple

Only recycle the following in your yellow lid recycling bin:

Hard plastic bottles and containers
Glass bottles and jars
Steel and aluminium cans
Paper and cardboard.

Keep it Clean

Rinse or wipe out containers that have food or drink in them.

Keep the following items out of your yellow lid recycling bin:

No food scraps
No nappies
No soiled paper or cardboard
No general waste
No fabric.

Keep it Loose

Place your recyclables loose in your recycling bin so they can be sorted
Don’t bag or box your recyclables.

Keep it Safe

Keep hazardous items that could harm workers or damage machinery out of your yellow lid recycling bin, including:

Netting
Wires and electrical cables
Broken glass
Sharps and needles
Chemicals
Building materials.

Keep out Soft Plastics

Keep the following items out of your yellow lid recycling bin:

All soft plastics, including bags, plastic wrapping, chip packets and bread bags
No degradable or biodegradable plastic bags; these belong in your general waste bin.

More recycling information

What happens to your recycling?

All recyclables collected in Townsville are taken to our Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) where they go through a sorting process that separates products into their different material groups (e.g. cardboard, plastics, deodorant cans).

Once sorted, the product is then baled and transported via rail to South-East QLD where it goes through a physical recycling process and is transformed into new products.

Items such as plastic bottles and containers can be recycled into new bottles and containers, plastic chairs and decking, kids play equipment, car bumper bars, even clothing and carpet material.

Paper and cardboard can be recycled up to 10 times until the paper fibres become too brittle to turn into new paper and cardboard product. Once paper reaches this stage it is simply turned into items like tissues and toilet paper which we throw away or flush down the toilet.

Glass is infinitely recyclable. This means it can be recycled over and over, forever. Glass can be made back into new glass bottles and jars, or used to make ceramic tiles, cement, paint additives even road base and bedding for new pipes and construction works.

Steel and aluminium, like glass, are also infinitely recyclable. These items can be smelted into new cans and bottles, but also in to car parts, tools, bicycles and fences.

Recycling reduces our reliance on extracting natural resources from our environment and keeps materials in use for as long as possible.

Recycling at home

Download the comprehensive guide to recycling around the home and garden (PDF 7.7MB)

In 2022, Townsville City Council conducted a waste and recycling characterisation audit of kerbside bins across the council. These audits provide valuable information about our resident’s waste and recycling habits and where we can improve.

The main findings from our recent audit showed:

Residents on average produce 14.73kg per week of general waste and 7.34kg per fortnight of recycling.
Recyclable material makes up approximately 13.9% of our general waste bins with
Compostable organics, including food and garden organics, makes up 52.4%
Our kerbside recycling bins contain about 27% contamination of waste materials that should be placed in the red or green lidded waste bin. Common waste items incorrectly placed in the recycle bin include garden organics, food scraps, bags of general rubbish and nappies, soft plastics, sharps, donation items such as clothing and toys, and electrical goods.
There is more than $2.5million worth of 10c refundable bottles and cans being disposed of in our kerbside bins each year. This is money that could be going directly back to our community!

Ways to reduce your impact (the 5 R’s):

Refuse to use single use items like shopping bags and disposable coffee cups. Take your own next time!
Reduce the amount of stuff we purchase – opt for products with minimal packaging and reduce the amount of food waste being generated in our homes.
Reuse items. Can you donate it, fix it or turn it into something new again?
Recycle or compost. Learn more about recycling and composting.
Recover. Items like batteries, scrap metals, oils and concrete can be deposited at designated areas of our landfill sites for processing. Find out more about transfer stations and what they accept.
Dispose. Only throw it out if there is no other alternative.

Recycling at work

Recycling at work is as simple as recycling at home.

Our resource recovery education officer can conduct toolbox talks with your workplace to dispel some of those myths about recycling in Townsville, and answer any questions you or your staff may have.

For more information please contact us and attention your correspondence to the resource recovery education officer.