As Christmas approaches, we’ve created a helpful guide to ensure your recycling and waste are handled perfectly for a stress-free festive season.
Reducing rubbish
Up your recycling game with these top tips:
- Opt for paper wrapping without glitter, plastics, or laminates, and ensure it gets recycled.
- Get creative with wrapping using newspaper, reusable materials or upcycle fabric from unloved clothes into a gift bag.
- Reuse cardboard boxes for future gifts.
- Reduce waste further by choosing reusable plates and glasses over disposable options.
Making room in the recycling bin
Make sure your recycling routine sleighs with these guidelines:
- Take excess recycling to the Bayside Recycling and Waste Centre (charges apply).
- Embrace the Victorian Government’s Container Deposit Scheme for eligible drink containers and receive a 10-cent refund per container. Find the closest refund point near you.
- Flatten or tear up cardboard before placing it in the recycling bin. You may also need to store some larger quantities to dispose of during your next recycling bin collection cycle.
- Cardboard can be accepted as part of Council’s hard waste service for eligible residents, which will re-open for bookings on 3 January 2024.
Remember, refrain from putting batteries or e-waste in kerbside bins. Instead, take them to our e-waste recycling stations.
Managing food scraps and leftovers
Handle food waste with these recommendations:
- Refrigerate or freeze leftovers and generously share them with guests.
- Direct all food scraps to the food and green waste bin.
- Avoid contaminating the green bin with food still in containers and ensure only certified compostable liners are used.
Reducing food waste
Proactively cut down on food waste:
- Plan meals thoughtfully and create a shopping list… and check it twice!
- Purchase items closer to when they will be used or with a longer use-by date to reduce spoilage
- Give leftovers to guests, or save them for Boxing Day lunch
- Compost any leftovers in your food and garden bin or home compost.
- Consider buying in small quantities from bulk food stores to minimise waste.
Minimising food smells
To help with unpleasant odours, try these simple practices:
- Freeze seafood, bones, and prawn shells in an airtight container and place them in your green bin the night before collection.
- Sprinkle bicarbonate of soda in the green bin.
- Keep your green bin in the shade.
Bin collection during holidays
Your kerbside bins will follow the regular collection schedule over the Christmas and New Year period. Allow some extra time on collection days; if your bin isn’t picked up as early as usual, it may be collected later in the day.
If you need to dispose of your organic/real Christmas tree, you can either chop it up into small pieces and pop it in your FOGO bin or book in a January hard waste collection, which will re-open for bookings on 3 January 2024. Bayside properties are eligible for two hard waste collections each year.
Use our handy A-Z guide to recycling to find out how to recycle or dispose of common Christmas items.
