National Recycling Week 2025
Published on 07 November 2025
We are constantly trying to improve how we deal with our waste - getting our recycling right is an important part of that! National Recycling Week, from 10-16 November, great opportunity to highlight the importance of recycling to reflect on our knowledge and improve our recycling practices.
It is now 2 years since the container deposit scheme started in Victoria - together, Victorians have returned more than 2 billion cans and bottles! In Warracknabeal, 2 million containers have been returned through the vending machine at the corner of Lyle Street & Scott Street!
While we focus a lot on kerbside recycling, there are many more recycling options available for many materials. In Yarriambiack Shire we offer recycling services for a range of products, including:
- Household batteries,
- E-waste - electronic and electrical items that are no longer usable,
- Green waste - garden organic waste,
- Concrete,
- Scrape metal,
- Clean fill,
- Mobile phones,
- Blister packs for medications,
- Mattresses,
- Car batteries,
- Tyres,
- Glass packaging,
- Paint,
- Agricultural chemical drums.
However, kerbside recycling questions are common place and can cause confusion. Part of that confusion is the result of changes to what is accepted or can be recycled. Plastics is the cause of most confusion and that is because there are quite a lot of plastic types. Most hard plastic packaging will have an embossed triangle symbol with a number inside (the Plastic Identification Codes) - if the number is 1, 2 or 5 then it can go into your mixed recycling bin.
The easiest way to think about what goes into your recycling bin is to think about packaging - recycling bins are designs for packaging - cardboard boxes, metal cans, hard plastic containers, and not much else. These tend to be simple single material items. Recycling bins are not made for items such as shoes, textiles, or gas bottles.
Why do we need to separate materials into different bins? Contamination. For example, glass is a significant contaminat of other recycables like plastic, paper and cardboard. Glass often gets broken during bin collection and get embedded in other materials, making those materials a lot harder to recycle.
It is really important that we all make an effort to "get it right" concerning the types of materials that we out in all the bins we have availale. Putting incorrect items into the wrong bin costs money and makes recycling unviable - the more unviable recycling we have, the more money it costs our community as a whole.
Yarriambiack Shire is focued on ensuring recyclable materials do not end up in landfill. Green waste is accepted at our tranfer stations - the material is shredded and utilised as part of the old landfill capping. Crushed concrete is used in infrastructure works. Scrap metal and tyre recycling is also accepted at all our transfer stations, as is larger e-waste items and matresses.
Some items can be recycling but it take a little bit of effort - such as batteries. Batteries should NOT be put into general waste or recycling bins - especially not lithium batteries. Batteries are known to cause fires in garbage trucks and landfill sites. There are quite a few battery recycling drop-off points available - most towns have a battery bin located in a public area (such as the Municipal Shire Office in Warracknabeal) or at retailers (such as Aldi, IGA supermarkets and Bunnings).
You can have a positive impact on our recycling practives in more ways than just putting items in the right bin. Recycling works best when we purchase new items made from recycled materials. There are many great examples, such as: recycled plastic containers for cleaning, recycled paper products like cat litter, or packaging that has recycled content. Keep an eye out while you are shopping, you maybe suprised by the amount of recycled options available!