240L, 660L or 1100L? A sizing guide by business type, built on how waste actually behaves: cafes run heavy and wet, offices run light and dry, warehouses run bulky.
Three wheelie bin sizes cover almost every Australian business: 240L, 660L and 1100L, collected weekly as standard. The right one depends less on how big your business is and more on what your waste is made of. Food waste is dense and fills bins fast. Office waste is light and mostly air. Warehouse waste is bulky packaging that eats volume without weighing much. This guide gives you the honest starting point by industry, and the reasoning, so you can sanity-check it against your own busiest week.
In Queensland, front-lift bins (1.5m3, 3m3 and 4.5m3) are also bookable for sites that outgrow wheelie bins. See the front-lift guide for when that jump makes sense.
| Business type | Typical starting point |
|---|---|
| Small office (under ~15 staff) | 1x 240L |
| Larger office (15-50 staff) | 1x 660L |
| Cafe or coffee shop | 1x 660L |
| Restaurant with a full kitchen | 1x 660L, add a second bin if trade is heavy |
| Takeaway or quick service | 1x 660L, 1100L if you are busy |
| Strip retail shop | 1x 240L, 660L if deliveries are constant |
| Supermarket or grocer | 1x 1100L and up |
| Gym, studio or salon | 1x 240L |
| Mechanic or trades workshop | 1x 660L |
| Warehouse or distribution | 2x 660L or 1100L and up |
| Medical or dental practice (general waste only) | 1x 240L |
| Hotel or accommodation | 1100L and up, usually multiple bins |
These are starting points, not verdicts. The quote flow asks what your business does and sizes the setup for your address, so the number you see is already matched to your waste profile.
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Get your exact priceKitchen waste is wet and dense, and it gets worse the longer it sits. A 240L bin at a cafe is usually overflowing by day five, and ripe well before that in summer. That is why nearly every food venue lands on a 660L bin even when floor space is tight. If you regularly fill a 660L before collection day, the honest fix is a second bin or the step up to 1100L, not hoping the lid closes.
In NSW, SA and WA you can also book a separate organics bin, which pulls the heaviest, smelliest fraction out of general waste. For food-heavy venues that often means the general bin can stay smaller. The food waste guide for restaurants and cafes covers this in detail.
Office waste is paper, packaging and lunch scraps. It is light and compresses well. A 20-person office rarely fills a 240L bin in a week, and paying for a 660L that leaves half empty is the most common oversizing mistake in commercial waste. Start small: adding capacity later is a quick change through your provider, while paying for air is permanent.
Most of what retail and logistics sites throw away is cardboard, and flattened cardboard takes a fraction of the space of boxes tossed in whole. Before you size up, flatten everything for a week and see where you actually land. In Adelaide, a dedicated cardboard bin can take the pressure off the general bin entirely; high-volume sites should weigh up a baler against bins.
The bin that is right in February can overflow in December. Size for your busiest normal week, and treat overflow as data: if the lid will not close two weeks running, change the setup. Collections run weekly as standard across every metro area, with the exact schedule confirmed when you book.
Enter your address and business type in the quote flow and you get an exact per-collection price in about two minutes, sized from what your business actually produces. Booking is free, and a vetted local provider delivers the bins, runs the weekly collections and invoices you directly.
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Most small offices, salons and studios run comfortably on a 240L bin collected weekly. Food businesses almost always need a 660L because kitchen waste is dense and fills bins fast. If you produce more than a few bags a day, start at 660L.
Almost always. The truck stop is a large share of the collection cost and it is the same stop for one bin or three. One 660L holds roughly what three 240L bins hold and usually costs less to service than three separate 240s.
Size for your busiest normal week, not the average. If the lid will not close two weeks running, add a bin or step up a size through your provider. One-off spikes around Christmas or stocktake are better handled by flattening cardboard than by upsizing all year.
Enter your postcode and what your business does in the quote flow. You see the exact per-collection price for your address in about two minutes, locked before you book. A vetted local provider then services and invoices you directly.
More resources to help you choose the right bins, schedules, and services.
The jump from 660L to 1100L is about access width, weight and fill rate, not just capacity. When the bigger bin wins, and when two 660s beat one 1100.
Adelaide has the widest choice of commercial bin streams in the country: general waste, cardboard, commingled recycling, and food organics, all on weekly collection. Here is what you can book, where coverage runs, and how the price is actually set.
General waste wheelie bins in 240L, 660L and 1100L sizes, collected weekly across every ACT town centre and Queanbeyan. How booking works and what Canberra sites need to think about.
View coverage and availability for these cities.
