Correct Disposal
What is correct disposal?
Correct disposal refers to when waste is disposed of in a safe, ethical, and responsible manner. Correct disposal of waste helps reduce the negative impacts of waste on the environment.
Correct disposal ensures that waste items can end up in the right place and items that can be recycled don’t end up in landfill. This action keeps our environment cleaner, reduces risks for the operators working at the Bathurst landfill area and at recycling factories, and can save you expenses on disposal.
How can you help?
Understanding the importance of where to discard waste items is essential to be able to practise correct disposal every time.
Households in Bathurst have a Council 3-bin service to assist with separating your waste correctly:
- Yellow lid recycling bin for clean paper and cardboard, glass jars and bottles, milk and juice cartons, plastic bottles, jars and containers, aluminium foil, and trays.
- Lime green lid food organics, garden organics (FOGO) bin for all food scraps including fruit and vegetable scraps, seafood, eggshells, meat and bones, tea bags and coffee grounds, compostable caddy liners and all garden waste including grass clippings, plant pruning’s, sticks and small branches. These items must go into the lime green lid FOGO bin and not the red lid general waste bin as food waste rotting in landfill produces methane, a greenhouse gas more potent that carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming.
- Red lid general waste bin for all residual waste that cannot go into the other two other bins. Including soft plastics, polystyrene, and packaging, treated timber, broken crockery/cutlery and other non- recyclable household rubbish.
Where can you take waste for disposal?
The Bathurst Waste Management Centre has a range of areas onsite that help you to correctly dispose of various waste items, including those items that don’t belong in your kerbside bins. These areas include:
- A transfer station for general waste
- Sorted and separated recycling drop off points
- Community Recycling Centre to dispose of household quantities of paint, gas bottles, aerosols, fluro globes, motor and other oils, batteries, and smoke detectors.
- Green waste drop off points
- Electronic waste drop off points
What about hazardous waste?
Household chemicals: Council endeavours to have a chemical collection at least once a year. Apart from this collection, chemical disposal is available through private contractors.
Agricultural Chemicals: To have unwanted rural chemicals collected phone ChemClear on 1800 008 182 to register. Bookings are essential. For more information: chemclear.com.au
Asbestos and other hazardous waste: Contact the Waste Management Centre for more information and to book appropriate waste disposal services where available , call 02 6338 2855.
What about old batteries, printer cartridges and mobile phones?
For household batteries Bathurst Regional Council has a drop off point for batteries, printer cartridges and mobile phones located in the Civic Centre foyer.
For car or other vehicle batteries, Council's Waste Management Centre has a battery disposal area.
Looking to give your waste another life?
If you have items to dispose that are in fair condition, why not consider taking them to The Junktion to give them another life? The Junktion is a secondhand and recycled goods shop run by a local charity and is located near the Waste Management Centre (turn left just before the Waste Management Centre entrance on College Rd). Remember, there are textiles bins at the Waste Management Centre to keep old clothes out of landfill, and there are a number of charity organisations and shops around Bathurst that take donations of clothes and other items in good condition.