What’s changing with waste and recycling

We are one of Australia’s fastest-growing council areas. Managing our waste sustainably and reducing what we send to landfill is an important part of our services. 

Changes to bin collection

The Victorian Government is standardising household waste and recycling services across the state.

All Victorian councils will move to a 4-bin system by 2030:

1. red for general rubbish
2. yellow for mixed recycling
3. lime green for food and garden organics and
4. purple for glass.

Reason for changes

At the moment, council areas across Victoria have different collections and bin colours. This causes confusion when people move across the state and affects how well we recycle.

The Victorian Government hopes that the new system will improve recycling and reduce waste going to landfill.

Timeline for changes

We are working towards a purple glass bin for all Geelong households by 2027, and a combined lime green food and garden organics bin from 2027-28.

Lime green bins in your street

Even though your neighbours’ bin is a different shade of green, you both have the same garden organics only service as the rest of Greater Geelong.

To reduce the cost to ratepayers from the new 4-bin system, we’ll be using the Victorian standard lime green lid on all new garden bins and bin replacements from late 2023.

However, these new bins will only accept garden organics until the transition to food and garden organics. Until then, food waste must continue to go in your red rubbish bin, or better yet, in a discounted home compost bin.

Food waste collection

Greater Geelong is one of Australia’s largest council areas, which makes it challenging to find processors for the huge volume of garden and food organics we produce. There is also a shortage of food waste processing facilities in the Geelong region, with most food and garden organics being sent to either Shepparton or Dandenong.

To solve this, we are working on new local facilities which will allow us to offer a food waste collection for all of Greater Geelong. This includes a partnership with Barwon Water to turn food and garden organics into energy and other useful products at their Regional Renewable Organics Network facility at Black Rock, Connewarre from 2025-2026. We have also begun upgrading our Anakie Garden Organics Processing Facility so it can accept more food waste.

Once these facilities are ready, we will begin a staged rollout of food and garden organics across Greater Geelong.

In the meantime, we are providing a discounted home compost bin to encourage residents to keep food waste out of landfill.

Glass can still go in your yellow recycling bin (for now)

Yes, you can continue to put glass jars and bottles in your yellow recycling bin until you receive a purple glass bin. Our contractor is able to accept glass in mixed recycling bins.

Drinking glasses and tableware, window panes and other types of glass cannot be recycled as they are designed to break down at higher temperatures and should be put in your red rubbish bin.

• Find out more about what can go in your bin

You can also recycle some glass and plastic containers for a refund through the Container Deposit Scheme.