The bin blunder causing big waste problems

BIN contaminations dropped to their lowest rate in 2025, but Geelong residents are still being urged to brush up on what belongs in their recycling and green waste bins.

The City of Greater Geelong spends more than $1 million each year dealing with contamination caused by incorrect items being placed in kerbside bins.

Common mistakes include food waste ending up in recycling bins and animal faeces being placed in green waste bins.

Contamination rates fell from 18.3 per cent to 15.15 per cent in 2025 – equivalent to about 600 tonnes less contaminated waste – but the problem has not been eliminated.

While the occasional wrong item might not seem significant, the city says contamination can have widespread impacts.

“Contaminated recycling isn’t just harmful to our environment, it also leads to higher waste costs for residents,” the city’s executive director of city infrastructure James Stirton said.

Up to 2,000 bins are inspected by the city’s waste education team each weekday.

Cameras attached to collection trucks capture footage of bin contents as they are emptied, allowing inspectors to quickly review loads for contamination.

If an issue is identified, it is recorded and the bin is tagged.

Stirton said a tagged bin should not alarm residents, but instead act as a reminder for households to check the latest sorting advice.

“The most common contaminants we detect are soft plastics, which are not only non-recyclable in the yellow bin, but they can also cause damage to sorting machines at recycling facilities,” he said.

“We understand that most people aren’t willingly putting the wrong thing in their bins. In fact, depending on the neighbourhood, only about 15 per cent of the bins we audit are contaminated.”

Households repeatedly identified as having contaminated bins are contacted by the city’s waste education team to help explain the problem.

Repeated, unchanged contamination may result in bins not being collected.

The waste education team inspects close to 400,000 green waste and recycling bins annually.