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Read about where your waste, FOGO and recycling goes when we collect it, or you drop it off.
Food and garden waste
We collect this from your Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) bin.
We take it to Boroondara Recycling and Waste Centre and tip it into large hoppers and compact it to fill large semi-trailer trucks.
From here it is taken to Bio Gro Composting Facility in Dandenong South. It gets pre-sorted, shredded and decontaminated. You can learn more about this on the Bio Gro website.
It then makes its way to a different site to mature via a process called open windrow composting, before being blended with other materials and turned into high quality mulch and compost.
Some of this product is:
- used in large-scale crop farms
- used to cultivate and harvest grapes (viticulture)
- used to cultivate plants to produce food or medicines (horticulture)
- sold at local garden centres.
Recycling
Your recycling is collected by Solo Resource Recovery, from your recycling bin.
They take it to VISY’s Materials Recovery Facility for sorting, which you can learn more about on the VISY website.
Some contaminated items are removed by hand.
Advanced sorting technology then separates materials into groups:
- paper
- cardboard
- glass
- plastic
- steel and aluminium.
Unfortunately, not all contaminated materials are identified through this process. This is why it's important to only place the correct items in your recycling bin.
Household waste
We collect this from your household waste bin.
We take it to Boroondara Recycling and Waste Centre and tip it into large hoppers and compact it to fill large semi-trailer trucks.
It's then taken by truck to Cleanaway’s Melbourne Regional Landfill. You can learn more on the Cleanaway website.
Waste does not get sorted or processed before being dumped at the landfill site.
Landfill space is running out, with only a few remaining sites near Melbourne. Some materials take a long time to break down in landfill and cause harmful greenhouse gas. You can help by reducing the amount of waste you send to landfill.
More information
You can find out more about our waste services and how to be more sustainable with your waste on our:
You can also learn more about individual items and how to dispose of them in our A to Z recycling and waste guide.