One bag of the wrong thing can void a whole recycling lift. The contaminants that actually cause rejections, and a prevention setup that takes an afternoon.
A recycling bin is only recycling while everything in it belongs there. Put the wrong things in and the load can be downgraded or refused, which means it gets handled as general waste and you lose the point of separating in the first place. Repeat it and providers start flagging the account. The fix is not complicated: know the handful of items that cause most rejections, put honest signage on the bin, and give staff the one rule that resolves every doubtful case.
If you are not sure, it goes in general waste. A recyclable item lost to landfill costs almost nothing. A non-recyclable item in the recycling bin can compromise the whole lift. Wish-cycling, throwing something in and hoping, is how well-meaning staff create contaminated loads.
Commercial commingled recycling (bookable through Bin Hire Australia in Sydney and Wollongong, Adelaide, and Perth) accepts rigid containers and clean paper: bottles, cans, rigid plastic containers, cardboard and paper. The repeat offenders that do not belong:
For the full what-goes-where list by stream, use the business recycling and organics guide.
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Get your exact price1. Put the bins where the waste happens. A recycling bin ten steps further than the general bin will be ignored. Pair them: everywhere there is a general bin, the recycling bin stands next to it.
2. Make signage from your own rubbish. Generic posters underperform. Photograph the five things your business actually throws out that belong in recycling, and the three that look recyclable but are not (for most businesses: coffee cups, soft plastics, soiled containers). One laminated sheet above each bin, yes column and no column.
3. Brief staff for five minutes. Cover the one rule (unsure = general waste), the three local offenders, and the loose-not-bagged rule. Repeat the brief when new staff start. That is the entire training program a small business needs.
4. Look in the bin before it is collected. Once a week for the first month, lift the lid. Contamination you catch early is a coaching moment; contamination the provider catches is a flagged lift. After a clean month, check monthly.
Persistent contamination usually has a structural cause, not a lazy-staff cause. The common ones: public access to the bins (passers-by and neighbouring tenancies fill unlocked bins with anything), front-of-house customer bins feeding directly into the commercial stream (customer sorting is unreliable; route customer bins through a staff check), or a missing stream (food businesses without an organics bin end up with soiled everything: see the organics service guide).
Contamination drops when each material has an obvious home. The quote flow prices general waste plus the recycling and organics streams bookable at your address in about two minutes, free to book, serviced weekly and invoiced directly by your vetted local provider.
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The load can be downgraded or refused by the processor, which means it is handled as general waste. Repeated contamination gets the account flagged by the provider. One bag of the wrong material can compromise an entire lift.
No. Standard takeaway cups are plastic-lined and are not accepted in commingled recycling. They go in general waste unless you have a dedicated cup collection scheme.
No. Recyclables go in loose. Bagged material often cannot be opened and inspected at the sorting facility, so bin liners full of recyclables are commonly treated as contamination.
Unsure means general waste. Losing one recyclable to landfill costs almost nothing; one wrong item in recycling can void the lift. This single rule prevents most contamination.
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