The future of recycling in Victoria

Future changes: Victoria’s standardised bin system

The standardised system will mean all Victorians have access to four recycling and waste streams:

• General waste (with red lidded bins)
• Combined paper, metal and plastic recycling (with yellow lidded bins)
• Combined food and garden waste recycling (with lime green lidded bins)
• Separate glass recycling (with purple lidded bins)

The State Government is also developing standard lists of what is accepted in each bin — so recycling and waste services provided by local government will be the same no matter where you live.

Glen Eira are not introducing a separate glass service yet. The State Government requires that every council provides a separate glass service by 2027 — we’ll keep you informed on this.  

Have your say on Victoria’s household recycling regulations

The Victorian Government is standardising household recycling and waste across the state — so the services delivered by councils will be the same, no matter where you live. 

The proposed Household Waste and Recycling Service Standard 2024 has been released and is now open for community consultation.

These regulations will mandate how Glen Eira City Council delivers household waste services. This includes standard lists for accepted items in each bin and a fourth glass recycling bin.

We support having the same accepted items in each bin to make recycling easier for everyone. For the most part, the proposed lists align with our current guidelines.  

However, the proposed standard is imposing unnecessary barriers for households preventing them from opting out of having a fourth glass bin, where we would expect a community drop-off would be more suitable.

Council should have the ability to ensure the services we provide reflect our community’s needs.

In our recent Future Waste Greener Glen Eira consultation, we asked our community about their glass recycling preferences.

Whilst we heard that many of our community members want the convenience of recycling glass at home, we also heard it is not a one-size-fits-all service.

Some people would prefer to use a community drop off point for multiple reasons, including limited space for an additional bin.

Under the proposed regulations, all local governments are required to assess that every household that opts-out of a glass recycling bin does not have appropriate onsite space for bin infrastructure.

Local Governments would also have to ‘publish the assessment for the community to access’ and ‘review assessments at least once every 3 years’ (page 5 of Proposed Household Waste and Recycling Service Standard 2024, available here).

These extreme mandates would cause unnecessary applications and assessments for our community, and strain council administration resources.

Council will be calling on the Victorian Government to remove these requirements, and to support local governments in providing services that can be appropriately tailored to our communities’ needs.

Have your say and provide feedback on the proposed regulations at Engage Victoria's webpage Setting the standard for better recycling at home.

Consultation closes Wednesday 14 August 2024.

Previous consultations

The regulations for how councils must provide waste and recycling services are developed under a ‘Service Standard’. The draft Service Standard was open for public feedback late 2022 and is set to be finalised in 2023.

The draft Service Standard proposes that all metropolitan households receive a purple lidded glass bin to separate glass by 2027 (page 7 of the Service Standards Discussion Paper).

Consultation on the proposed policy options for the first service standard for the new household waste and recycling system closed 26 October 2022.

Keep up-to-date with the State Government's engagement and community consultation on the proposed changes, visit the Setting the standard for better recycling at home ​webpage where you select 'follow' on the right-hand side to receive email updates. 

FAQ's