Follow our yellow lid bin guide for instruction about correct recycling in the Shoalhaven.
Guides are available at the Nowra Administration Centre and any of the Shoalhaven Library locations, or you can email wasteadmin@shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au to order one.
Just because an item has a recycling symbol on it, doesn't mean it can be recycled by putting it in your yellow-lid bin.
Sometimes a recycling symbol can mean that:
- the item is a type of plastic identified by the resin identification code (the numbers inside the arrows)
- the item is made of recycled materials
- the item can be recycled only if it gets put through a specialised recycling process (like polystyrene)
Please note: Recycling symbols can be misleading or outdated so we ask you to ignore them.
Most of what goes into your yellow-lid bin are containers for food, drinks, or soap/detergent-based products - basically items that you would typically buy in the food or cleaning aisles of your supermarket.
Please note: Never put your recyclable materials into a plastic bag before putting them in the yellow-lid bin. Bags are not opened at the recycling facility and all contents will go directly to landfill.
Items that can go in your yellow-lid bin
- glass bottles and jars (all colours)
- paper and flattened cardboard and
- cardboard 'Tetra-pak' cartons
- hard plastic bottles e.g. drink/milk/shampoo/detergent bottles
- hard plastic containers e.g. ice-cream, yoghurt, deli-takeaway containers and fruit punnets
- steel food cans eg: dog food, baked bean cans
- aluminium cans
- aluminium foil (collect clean foil to the size of a tennis ball)
- aerosol cans (what you'd find in your house eg: hairspray, not what you'd find in your garage eg: paint)
- metal lids
Items that should NEVER go in your yellow-lid bin
- anything that is not included in the list above
Common mistakes found in the yellow-lid bin
- soft plastics (such as garbage bags, bread, pasta and rice bags, freezer bags, cling wrap, plastic film on frozen meals and plastic shopping bags)
- silver-lined 'foil-like' plastics like chip and biscuit packets
- plastic squeeze tubes eg: toothpaste tubes
- take-away coffee cups
- window glass, mirrors, drinking glasses
- foam
- contaminated paper/cardboard e.g. pizza boxes
- absorbent paper eg: napkins
- shredded paper
- sales receipts (these contain plastic)
- plastic cutlery and cups
- items labelled compostable or biodegradable (the yellow-lid bin is for recycling, not composting)
Make sure you empty all containers of their contents, but they don't need to be spotless, so a quick rinse is sufficient.
If food scraps are stuck to the container (like a pizza box), you can cut off the part that is contaminated and put that into the red lid bin, and recycle the parts that aren't contaminated in your yellow lid bin.
To save water we recommend giving them a quick wash out in used dishwater, or any or other source of greywater.
- small plastic lids and metal bottle caps go in the red-lid bin because they are too small for the recycling process and fall through the machines
- larger plastic lids, e.g. butter and ice cream container lids can go in the yellow-lid bin
- plastic hand-pump lids, like the type commonly found on hand soap bottles, go in the red-lid bin
- larger metal lids, like the kind found on jam and pasta sauce jars, go in the yellow-lid bin, but make sure to put them in separately to the glass jar itself