How to recycle common household items

If you know your A-Z of what you can put in your yellow recycling bin, you might be wondering what more you can do to reduce your household waste.

There are plenty of ways to recycle other items that don’t go in your yellow bin. Here’s some ideas to get you started:

Don’t stay in the dark when it comes to recycling

In the dark about where to dispose of used light globes? Householders can recycle a wide range of globes through Mitre 10 hardware stores, Ikea and many council depots.

This ensures that globes will be recycled instead of going to landfill and prevents mercury contained in some globes from harming the environment.

Don’t waste your batteries

There’s a number of drop-off locations for household batteries and car batteries – visit the PlanetArk Recycling Near You website and check their directory to find your closest drop off point.

To recycle your mobile phone, charger, accessories, battery and mobile wireless broadband devices go to Mobile Muster’s website for details on drop-off points or postage options.

Return your unused medicines to keep a healthy earth

Did you know you can return unwanted or out of date medication to your local pharmacist for free?

Time to clean out the medicine cabinet and ensure unused medicines are disposed of in a way that’s safe for us and the environment.

Medical blister packs are also now recyclable through TerraCycle!

TVs, computers and e-goods, whitegoods and other items

Electronic waste has been banned from direct disposal to landfill and must not be placed in any household bin.

E-waste can contain hazardous materials including heavy metals and glass, which if broken or damaged pose a huge environmental hazard.

Also, about 90% of the material used to make televisions and computers can be recycled, which means you’ll save valuable, finite resources.

Visit the Which Bin website to find out where you can drop off your e-Waste.

If in doubt, check this out…

Which Binwill help you divert unwanted materials away from landfills through recycling.

By entering your location and the material you wish to recycle, the directory will find the nearest recycler to you or you can call their hotline on 1300 137 118.

A note from the Good Living team: We previously mentioned that you can take all batteries to BatteryWorld for recycling. We’ve since found out that BatteryWorld take large batteries only. We’ve updated the story to reflect this and to share some good news – you can take your household batteries to Aldi stores!

Check out how food waste contributes to climate change and how you can reduce it to have a much more sustainable kitchen – and a cheaper grocery bill too.

This story was originally posted in April 2017.