What Really Happens After You Take the Bins Out?
Ever wondered what actually happens after you wheel your bins to the kerb each week? We sort our paper, plastics, and glass into the yellow-lidded bin, trusting it’s all going off to be magically turned into something new. We see the trucks drive away, and mostly, that’s where our knowledge ends.
But what really goes on? Especially with plastics, the story isn't as simple as we might hope. While we try our best – 81% of us think we're good recyclers – the hard truth is that very little plastic in Australia actually gets recycled. In 2022-23, only about 12.5% of all plastic waste was recovered (recycled or used for energy), meaning the vast majority headed to landfill.
So, let's follow the journey and see where things go right, and where they often go wrong.
The Recycling Journey: How It's Supposed to Work
When you put your recyclables in the yellow bin, here’s the ideal plan:
Collection: The council truck picks up your mixed recyclables – paper, cardboard, glass, metal, and accepted plastics.
The Sorting Centre (MRF): Everything gets trucked to a big sorting factory called a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
The Big Sort: Inside the MRF, it's a mix of people and machines. Conveyor belts carry the items past workers who pull out obvious problems (like plastic bags or nappies). Then, machines take over:
Screens separate flat things (paper) from containers (bottles, cans).
Magnets grab steel cans.
Special currents zap aluminium cans into another stream.
Optical scanners (like fancy cameras) identify different plastic types (like clear drink bottles #1 and milk bottles #2) and use air jets to puff them onto the right conveyor belt.
Bundling Up: The sorted paper, cardboard, and plastics are squashed into big square bales.
Glass is usually kept loose.
Off to Be Remade: These bales are sold and sent to other factories (reprocessors) that turn them back into raw materials.
Becoming Something New: At the reprocessing factory, plastics are washed, shredded, melted, and turned into little pellets. These pellets can then be used by manufacturers to make new products – maybe more bottles, pipes, park benches, or even fleece jackets.
That’s the goal: a neat circular loop.
The Reality Check: Why It Often Doesn't Work (Especially for Plastics)
Unfortunately, that ideal journey hits a lot of bumps, particularly for plastics:
Wishcycling & Contamination: It starts at home. Putting the wrong things in the yellow bin – food scraps, soft plastics (like bags and wrappers), clothes, nappies – causes big problems. Food scraps make paper and cardboard mouldy. Soft plastics jam the sorting machines. Workers try to pull contaminants out, but they can't catch everything. Even a small amount of the wrong stuff can ruin a whole bale of good material. Many people also don't empty or rinse containers (33% don't do it regularly, adding to the contamination. Crucially, putting your recyclables inside a plastic bag means the whole bag usually goes straight to landfill because the sorting machines can't see what's inside.
Sorting Isn't Perfect: The machines are clever but not foolproof. They're best at sorting common, rigid containers like drink bottles (PET #1) and milk jugs (HDPE #2). They struggle with:
Soft plastics: Often missed or jam machinery. (And 33% of us put them in the wrong bin anyway!)
Small items: Bottle caps often fall through the cracks.
Black plastic: Can be invisible to the optical sorters.
Mixed materials: Things made of several types of plastic bonded together are very hard to separate.
Confusion: Many people find recycling instructions unclear (35% find it difficult) and mistake symbols like the PVC #3 code for a recycling symbol (80% get this wrong).
Not Enough Places to Remake It: Even if plastic gets sorted correctly, Australia currently doesn't have enough factories (reprocessors) to handle all of it, especially the more difficult types like soft or mixed plastics. We used to export a lot of this waste, but bans now mean we have to deal with more of it ourselves.
Cost: Making brand new plastic from oil and gas is often cheaper and easier than collecting, sorting, cleaning, and reprocessing old plastic. Unless there's a strong reason (like government rules or brand commitments), manufacturers might choose the cheaper virgin option.
Lack of Demand: If companies don't buy the recycled plastic pellets to make new things, there's no point in recycling them. We need more demand for products made with recycled content.
The Trust Issue
All these challenges contribute to a lack of faith in the system. A concerning 41% of Australians don’t trust their waste will be properly recycled, with 18% believing it all just goes to landfill anyway. If people don't believe their efforts make a difference, it's harder to motivate everyone to sort correctly and avoid contamination, creating a vicious cycle.
So, Where Does the Unrecycled Plastic Go?
The overwhelming majority – around 87.5% in 2022-23 – ends up in landfill, where it sits for hundreds or thousands of years. A small amount might be burned for energy, but this isn't common practice in Australia.
What Can We Do?
Understanding what really happens is the first step. While the system has flaws, individual actions still matter:
Reduce First: The best approach is to use less plastic in the first place, especially single-use items.
Know Your Local Rules: Check what your specific council accepts in the yellow bin. Rules vary!
Keep it Clean & Loose: Empty and rinse containers. Keep recyclables loose in the bin – never put them in plastic bags.
Sort Soft Plastics Separately: Find out if there are local drop-off points for soft plastics (check Recycle Mate or Planet Ark). Don't put them in the kerbside bin unless your council has a specific program.
Fixing the bigger system issues requires action from governments (like clearer national rules and investing in infrastructure) and industry (designing easier-to-recycle packaging and using more recycled content). But knowing the real journey of our waste helps us understand why our own efforts to reduce and recycle correctly are so important.