$670,000 a year in drink container refunds thrown away.
43% of general waste could have been recycled or composted.
A recycling facility fire believed to have been caused by a binned battery.
If you look after a bin room, you already know the yellow bin gets the bagged recycling and the red bin gets the cans. Lismore City Council now has numbers on what that costs.
In May 2026, APC Waste Consultants sorted more than 5.5 tonnes of waste from 316 Lismore households for the council, and the Northern Rivers Times reported the results in July. When residents used the right bin they did well, with 96% compliance in FOGO bins and 81% in recycling bins. The trouble was everything that never reached the right bin.
About 43% of what went into red-lid general waste bins could have gone to recycling or FOGO using services residents already had. Eligible drink containers worth roughly $670,000 a year in refunds went out with the rubbish. And earlier this year the council’s recycling facility had a fire that was believed to have started with a battery someone had put in a bin.
Anyone who manages a strata building, an office tower or a shopping centre will recognise the pattern. Most people know the rules, and the system still leaks at the moment they throw something away, because the yellow bin is full, the chute only takes one stream, or there’s nowhere obvious to drop a dead vape. Across a few hundred residents or staff those moments add up, and the battery that slips through lands where waste gets crushed: in the chute bin, the compactor and the truck.
| Lismore finding | What it looks like on your site |
| 43% of red-bin waste could have been recycled or composted | Part of what you pay to move as general waste could be going out as recycling or FOGO |
| About $670,000 a year in unclaimed container refunds | Cans and bottles leaving in the red bin from units and staff kitchens |
| Bagged recyclables, e-waste, batteries and treated timber in the wrong bins | The same items turning up in chute bins and commercial bins |
| A facility fire believed to have started with a battery | Any battery in the general waste stream is on its way to a crusher |
NSW is aiming to recover 80% of all waste by 2030, and audits like this one suggest a fair share of the gap is sitting in bins that already exist.
National Recycling Week is Planet Ark’s annual campaign, held in the second week of November since 1996, and this year’s theme is “Join the Cycle”. Planet Ark puts Australia’s recycling rate at more than 60% today, up from 7% when the campaign started. If you want something ready to put in front of staff, the National Recycling Week At Work page has free bin signage, a workplace recycling guide and a trivia pack.
The week gives you a reason to look at where your own site leaks. Below is what we’d check first, starting with what you can tell residents and staff and working through to chutes, compactors and balers.
Keep recyclables loose. Bagged items are hard to sort and often go to landfill.
Empty and rinse. Containers need to be free of food, not spotless.
Collect drink containers for refunds. Use your state’s container deposit scheme, such as Return and Earn in NSW.
Use FOGO where you have it. Food in landfill produces methane.
Keep a battery jar. Tape the terminals and store it somewhere cool and dry.
Check before you chuck. Your council’s website lists what goes in each bin.
Your residents have heard most of this before, so the work is getting it in front of them at the moment they throw something out. These six points fit on a lift notice, a strata newsletter or a staff email.
A lithium-ion battery that gets crushed in a truck, a chute bin or a compactor can short-circuit and catch fire, and inside a building there’s no kerb to tip a burning load onto. The routine for residents and staff is short: tape the terminals, store the batteries somewhere cool and dry away from metal, and take them to a free drop-off point at a supermarket, hardware store, library or council recycling centre. B-cycle and most council websites list the nearest ones, and swollen, damaged or e-bike batteries need a call to the council first.
We’ve covered the building side in more depth in our guide to lithium battery disposal in apartment buildings, including where batteries hide in building waste and what managers can check.
One spot, every stream: general waste, recycling, FOGO, container refunds and batteries.
Council colours: red, yellow and green lids, so habits carry from home to work.
Signs where waste is dropped: short and at eye level, on every bin and chute door.
Batteries kept separate: a collection point in the lobby, mailroom or staff room, never beside the chute.
The setups that work in a kitchen, an office break room and a basement bin room have a few things in common. Every stream sits side by side, so nobody walks past the recycling to reach the general waste, and the lids match the council’s red, yellow and green so habits carry over from home.
Signs go on the bin or chute door itself, short and at eye level, because that’s where people are standing when they decide. Batteries get their own collection point in the lobby, mailroom or staff room, well away from the chute, and it’s worth checking which container your battery recycler wants before you buy one.
Tips only go so far when the building makes the wrong choice easier than the right one. These are the changes we’d look at next, in roughly the order we’d look at them on a site visit.
In a multi-storey building with one general waste chute, recycling means a trip to the basement, and plenty of residents won’t make it. Dual chute systems give recycling a chute of its own. Where a second chute won’t fit, our eDiverter® lets residents choose the stream at the chute door and sends each load to the right bin, and buildings preparing for the NSW FOGO rollout can add a FOGO option the same way.
Compaction cuts bin changes and collections, and it’s also the point where a hidden battery is most likely to get crushed. Under a chute, an auger spreads and compresses the waste so the bin fills evenly and needs changing less often, while stationary and integrated compactors or the ECO Multipress take on bigger volumes. Whatever you run, the “no batteries, no aerosols” sign belongs at every chute door and feed point.
Loose cardboard fills a bin with mostly air, and once the recycling bin overflows it goes in general waste. A vertical baler suits a café, a small retailer or a mixed-use building, while automatic and semi-automatic horizontal balers are built for shopping centres, warehouses and distribution sites.
A chute door that doesn’t latch, a partial blockage or an overdue compactor service will push waste into the wrong place well before anything actually breaks. Preventative maintenance and regular chute door inspections catch most of it, and our 24/7 service covers the rest. Our Intellichute™ technology adds monitoring to chute systems, so faults can show up before residents report them.
Lismore got its 43% by tipping out bins and sorting what was in them. A site analysis does the same job for one building or business, and on a new project the same thinking goes into the waste room design and the operational waste management plan for development approval. Our consulting team does both, along with Green Star reporting and education programs for residents and staff.
| Site | Where it usually leaks | Fixes to look at |
| High-rise residential and strata | Recycling and batteries going down the general waste chute | Dual chute or eDiverter®, augers, a battery collection point, chute maintenance |
| Mixed-use developments in design | Waste rooms planned around one stream | Operational waste management plan, chute and waste room design, FOGO provision |
| Retail, hospitality and shopping centres | Cardboard volume and general waste costs | Balers, compactors, colour-coded bins |
| Offices and workplaces | Contaminated recycling and drink containers in the red bin | Colour-coded bins from 60L to 1100L, refund and battery points, staff education |
| Warehouses and industrial sites | Bulky packaging and high volumes | Horizontal balers, stationary compactors, bin lifters |
Everything in the table can be bought or leased through our waste and recycling equipment range.
Share the six tips with residents or staff
Label every bin and chute door
Set up a container refund point
Set up a battery collection point
Check that bins, compactors and balers are serviced
Download Planet Ark’s free workplace resources
Review waste room design on upcoming projects
We’ve been designing, installing and servicing waste systems across NSW, Victoria and Queensland since 1976. For strata and building managers, that might mean a chute upgrade such as a dual chute or eDiverter®, an auger, a battery collection point or a service schedule. For facilities teams it might be compactors, balers and colour-coded bins, bought or leased, and for developers, architects and builders it’s usually earlier in the project, with chute and waste room design, FOGO provision, operational waste management plans and Green Star reporting.
If any of this sounds like your site, call us on 1300 435 374 or email info@elephantsfoot.com.au. We’re happy to look at what you’ve already got before suggesting anything new.
General information only. Recycling rules vary, so check with your local council.
It runs from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 November 2026, and Planet Ark’s theme this year is “Join the Cycle”.
Tape the terminals, keep them somewhere cool and dry, and take them to a free drop-off point such as a supermarket or council recycling centre. They should never go in a bin or down a chute.
No. A battery crushed in a truck, a chute bin or a compactor can short-circuit and start a fire.
At a minimum, separate bins for general waste, recycling and FOGO in council colours. Many sites also need a container refund bin and a battery collection point, and high-volume sites usually add a compactor or baler.
Start at the chute door, where residents decide. Dual chutes or a chute diverter give recycling its own path, augers and compactors manage volumes, and a separate battery collection point keeps fire risks out of the chute.
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