Recycling at home

Brisbane residents are working hard to improve their recycling habits at home. Brisbane City Council households recycled more than 81,000 tonnes of waste in recycling wheelie bins in 2020-21, including paper, cardboard, glass, plastics, aluminium and steel.

Use this page to help you recycle more at home and send less waste to landfill. Together we'll get recycling sorted.

Test your knowledge with our recycling quiz

Take our quick recycling quiz to:

  • find out what type of recycler you are
  • make sure you're putting the right things in the right bin.

Recycling guide for households

Brisbane’s Best Recycling Guide for Households is a pocket guide about the benefits of recycling.

The guide includes:

  • the easiest ways to collect recyclables from around your house
  • what can and cannot go in Council's recycling wheelie bin 
  • answers to frequently asked questions
  • information on sorting recyclables
  • answers to recycling myths
  • top 10 recycling tips (read our online version)
  • guidance about how to recycle items not accepted in Council's wheelie bins (includes reusable household goods, scrap metals and garden waste).

Download a copy of:

Brisbane Bin and Recycling app

The information in Brisbane’s Best Recycling Guide for Households is also available on Council's free Brisbane Bin and Recycling app. Download the app with its easy search function to make sure you're putting the right thing in the right bin every time.

What can I put in my recycling bin?

Before you dispose of any household item, check what it's made from. If it's made from paper, cardboard, firm plastic, metal (aluminium and steel) or glass, it's likely it can go in your recycling bin. 

Find a full and detailed list of what can and can't go into your household recycling bin on our bin items page, or by using the guide or app. Also be guided by recycling labels - read our The lowdown on recycling labels blog.

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Need a larger household recycling bin?

By recycling paper, cardboard, glass, firm plastics and metal, it can be easy to have a full recycling bin each fortnight. You can swap to a larger recycling bin to make recycling easier for your home. Council has waived the $30 establishment fee.

What happens to your recycling?

Brisbane boasts a state-of-the-art recycling service that residents can be proud of. Recycling collected by Brisbane City Council’s dedicated fleet of recycling trucks is taken to Visy’s Material Recovery Facility at Gibson Island. Council supports local recycling through Brisbane and Australian based companies.

Find out more

The process:

  1. Residents place recyclables in recycling bins.
  2. Recycling bins are collected by Council’s contractor and taken to Visy’s Material Recovery Facility at Gibson Island.
  3. Visy sorts recycling into streams of paper and cardboard, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) polyethylene terephthalate/polyester (PET), steel, mixed plastics, glass and aluminium to be reprocessed into new products.
  4. Items that are not recyclable but have been incorrectly placed into recycling bins are sorted out of these streams and go to landfill.

Watch the Visy recycling education video.

Related links

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Brisbane City Council acknowledges this Country and its Traditional Custodians. We pay our respects to the Elders, those who have passed into the dreaming; those here today; those of tomorrow.