New financial year, same bins? A short, honest audit of what your business pays for waste: where the money leaks, what to resize, and when to requote.
A waste cost review is 20 minutes of looking at your bins and your invoices, and for most businesses it finds money. The new financial year is the natural time to do it: FY2027 has just started, landfill levies stepped up again in most states on 1 July, and whatever service you set up years ago is now priced against a market that has moved. Here is the whole review, in the order that finds the most money first.
Walk out and look at the bin the day before collection. If it is half full, you are paying every week for capacity you do not use. This is the single most common leak: a business books a 660L on day one "to be safe", trade settles, and the bin runs at 50 percent forever. Downsizing the bin, or keeping the bin and confirming the right size in a fresh quote, is the easiest saving in this list.
The reverse leak is subtler: an overflowing bin pushed someone into a second bin, when the real problem was unflattened cardboard filling the first one with air. Which brings us to the next check.
General waste is the expensive stream, because every kilo of it carries landfill levy and gate fees. Landfill levies have risen sharply across Australia and they step up near the start of each financial year, so material you divert out of general waste is worth more this year than last.
What you can actually divert depends on your state through our network: in Sydney and Wollongong, commingled recycling and food organics run alongside general waste; in Adelaide, cardboard, commingled recycling, and organics all do; in Melbourne, commingled recycling and cardboard both do; in Perth, commingled recycling and a greens and garden organics stream became bookable this July. In Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Hobart, and Canberra the bookable stream is still general waste only, and the play there is flattening cardboard, container deposit schemes for eligible drink containers, and honest sizing. The full method is in how to cut your general waste bin in half.
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Tell us your address and what your business does, and get your exact price in about 2 minutes. Free to book; a vetted local provider services and invoices you directly.
Get your exact priceCollections run weekly as standard. The question is whether the bin count and sizes still match your trade. If you added a bin for a busy period that ended, or your volumes moved when you changed menu, suppliers, or opening hours, the setup should move too. Waste services have a way of outliving the circumstances that created them.
If your service was set up more than a couple of years ago, requote it, even if only to confirm you are fine. What actually sets a commercial bin price is bin size, business type, and route density at your address, and all three inputs get repriced by the market over time. The quote flow gives you the exact per-collection price for your address and business type in about two minutes, free, with no obligation to switch. You either find a better number or you confirm the one you have. Both outcomes are worth 20 minutes at the start of the year.
| Check | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| Bin fullness day before collection | Half empty = downsize; overflowing = check cardboard first |
| General bin contents | Cardboard, food waste, and containers that could be diverted |
| Bin count and sizes | Leftovers from a busier or different version of the business |
| Price | A fresh quote to beat or confirm your current per-collection cost |
Do it this month, put a reminder in for next July, and stop thinking about bins until then.
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Free commercial bin booking across Australia. We match your business with a vetted local provider who services and invoices you directly.
Check four things: how full the bin is the day before collection, how much dense divertible material (cardboard, food waste, containers) is riding in general waste, whether your bin count still matches your trade, and what a fresh quote says for your address. Twenty minutes covers all four.
State landfill levies typically step up on 1 July, and disposal costs sit inside every general waste collection price. The higher the levy climbs, the more each litre of general waste costs and the more diverting recycling and organics is worth.
Yes, every couple of years. Pricing inputs like route density and market rates move. A requote takes about two minutes in the quote flow and either finds a better per-collection price or confirms your current one is fair. There is no obligation either way.
You are paying for capacity you do not use, which is the most common waste-cost leak. Downsize the bin or drop the extra bin. Size for your genuinely busy week, not the week the business had years ago.
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.
