Recycling Facility
Sorting of your yellow-lid bin contents takes place right here in Townsville at our Material Recovery Facility (MRF) at 610 Ingham Road, Mount Louisa (map).
What Happens to Your Recycling?
Watch this video for a fascinating peek into the recycling magic that happens here!
The Sorting Process
Once your recycling is collected from your kerbside yellow bin by our dedicated recycling trucks, it is transported to Townsville’s MRF in Mount Louisa where it passes through a series of manual and mechanical sorting processes:
- The contents of the recycling truck is emptied onto the tipping floor.
- This mixed material is loaded onto a conveyor belt.
- Staff manually remove any contamination such as general waste and hazardous items.
- Material continues along several conveyor belts that sort items by size and material type.
- A series of conveyors, disc screens and magnets separate heavy recyclables such as hard plastics, glass, steel, and aluminium from lighter recyclables such as paper and cardboard.
- Each product is then baled and stored ready for transporting to remanufacturers across Australia to be turned into new products.
Find out more about the sorting process in the Townsville MRF Factsheet (PDF, 3.4 MB).
Education and Tours
Schools across Townsville are invited to organise a free excursion to the Townsville MRF for students to learn to see behind the scenes of what happens to the contents of their recycling bin.
Visit our Education and Tours page for more information and to book a session.
View a virtual tour of the Materials Recovery Facility Education Rooms.
Find out more about recycling of materials by downloading the factsheets below:
- Glass Recycling Factsheet (PDF, 7.7 MB)
- Paper and Cardboard Recycling Factsheet (PDF, 6.5 MB)
- Steel and Aluminium Recycling Factsheet (PDF, 5.8 MB)
- Plastic Recycling Factsheet (PDF, 5.2 MB).
More Information
For more information:
- Let's Get it Sorted page (information about recycling in your home and community)
- Waste and Recycling page (information about our other resource recovery services).
