What goes in the rubbish and recycle bin?




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Get It Sorted is a state wide campaign that aims to help communities use their local resource recovery centre to its full capacity.

Resource recovery centres are often referred as transfer stations or in many cases ‘tips’. These facilities provided in over 270 communities across Victoria and have been designed to help reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill and recycle as much as we possibly can.

Unlike landfills, resource recovery centres can accept a wide variety of recyclable materials and you are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the drop off services that are available for recyclable material.

In the Central Murray Regionl there are 25 resource recovery centres. These Centres were established after the Councils decided to close the existing landfill and to ensure that the community still had access to a waste and recycling disposal facility.

Head to the LINKS page to find your local resource recovery centre in your Shire.

You can recycle a wide range of materials at the resource recovery centres in the Region and in many cases you can drop some of these items off for free!

Click here to find out all about local resource recovery centres and what you can recycle at them.

Sort Your Load Before You Go!

Unsorted loads cop the maximum fee so make sure your sort your load into recycable items and keep the general waste separate at the back of the trailer. This way you will make sure you recycable a heap more and save yourself some money at the same time. 

                      Wrong way to sort your load                                                   Right way to sort your load


Once you trailer or ute is empty, you might be able to pick up a load of great garden mulch or grab a bargain at the Reuse Centre for your next building project.

So now you know all you need to know about your local resource recovery centre. Remember, unsorted loads cop the maximum fee, so GET IT SORTED!

The Get It Sorted campaign is an initiative of the Association of Victorian Regional Waste Management Groups, supported by the Victorian Government Sustainability Fund.

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Recycle Annie will help you remember to put the right items into your recycling bin.



A TV Star is born! Recycle Annie is a feature in two TV commercials - if you would like a copy of the TV ads, please contact us.

Some other Recycle Annie tips include:

• Leaving the lids on your recyclables
• You can bundle your papers together with string if you like, but its not essential
• Take the clean lid of a pizza box and recycle it (you just can't recycle the base that has food and oil marks)
• All rigid plastics are recyclable with codes 1-7. If it is a hard or firm plastic item, it goes in your recycling bin. If it is soft (like a plastic bag) it is rubbish.

Smoke detectors aren't recycable - put them in the rubbish bin

Why do we need to recycle right?

Your recyclables are taken to a Materials Recovery Centre (MRF) and most of the items are sorted by hand. Paper and cardboard are collected through trummles first (air blows them out), then plastics and glass are hand sorted with steel and aluminum collected on large magnets. When the wrong items are places into the recycling bin, it makes sorting these items very difficult.

Head to http://www.visy.com.au to take a tour inside a working MRF and see how it all happens. Sorting through rotting and dangerous items can be a real hazard for the people who operate our local MRF's so please make sure you only put the right things into the recycling bin.

Contamination Facts:

Plastic bags can get caught up in the machinery and cause major breakdowns.

The staff also don't like to open bags because it is very time consuming and they don't know what they might discover once they have opened the bag! Dirty nappies, rotting food or even a dead animal!

Drinking glasses, window glass, crockery or light globes are made from a different type of glass to bottles and jars. You can contaminate an entire truck load of recyclable glass which means it is sent to landfill

Food soiled cardboard / paper cannot be recycled as it contaminates the clean material and makes it impossible to process into new clean paper and cardboard

Green waste and food waste can contaminate all types of clean recyclable materials. One bin full of grass clippings can mean an entire load of recyclables are sent to landfill

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU PUT THE RIGHT ITEMS INTO THE RIGHT BIN!

Recycle Annie Fact Sheets

Fact Sheet 1 - Why Recycle Right?

Fact Sheet 2 - Recycle Right

Fact Sheet 3 - Benefits of Recycling

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Blinky Bulb - Recycle Your Globes and Tubes



Blinky Bulb is a new recycling project that has been initiated by the Highlands Regional Waste Management Group in partnership with Rotary. The CMRWMG is working with these partners and its member Councils to offer a free recycling service for tubes and globes.

To find out where you can recycle your tubes and globes in the Shires of Swan Hill, Buloke, Loddon and Gannawarra go to Blinky Bulb




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E-waste Recycling Program



The Central Murray Regional Waste Management Group (CMRWMG), in partnership ts member Councils are pleased to announce the arrival of its "E-recycling” program.

What items can be recycled?

Computer Monitors, TVs, Desktop PCs, Laptops, Printers, Scanners, Mobile Phones, Photocopiers, Fax and Answering Machines, Telephones, Video/DVD Players, Stereo Systems, Video/Digital Cameras, Microwaves, Vacuum Cleaners, Hair Dryers, Alarm Clocks, Smoke Detectors, Cordless Tools, Air Conditioners, Electronic Games & Toys, Catalytic Converters, and just about any other electrical item that can be plugged in and switched on.

Collection skips are located at landfills and transfer stations, where residents can dispose of their items. Contact your local Council for the opening times and locations of your landfills and transfer stations.

What happens to the the Items?

Items are then broken down into various components including plastics, glass, metals, wiring, circuit boards and then sent to various recovery facilities for recycling. Some of these components will be recycled into new products whilst others such as metals will be recycled and reused again.

All e-waste is accepted at the sites is FREE of charge except for computer monitors, laptops and television screens, which will cost $5 each, as they contain toxic chemicals which require special handling.

If you have large volumes of electronic waste please contact your local council prior to delivery of the goods your local landfill or transfer station.

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drumMUSTER

The Central Murray region was one of the first areas in Victoria to participate in drumMUSTER, a national program to collect and recycle clean, empty farm chemical containers.

With seven successful collections completed, Central Murray region farmers have returned more than drums to the 25 collection points established across the region.

One of the major benefits of the drumMUSTER program is that all containers collected are either reused, or shredded/compacted, and the plastic and steel used in the construction of new and worthwhile products.

So far the region has been able to recycle around 260 tonnes of steel and plastic material into new and valuable products, with some of the plastic recycled during previous drumMUSTER collections now being used in the construction of the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline.

It is also being recycled into a range of new products including steel building materials and plastic products such as mobile garbage bins, outdoor furniture and signposts.

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Silage Wrap and Baling Twine Recycling

Following on from successful collection programs in the Gippsland, Goulburn Valley, North East and South West regions, the Central Murray Regional Waste Management Group is now offering local farmers the opportunity to recycle used silage wrap and baling twine.

What do you have to do to have your silage wrap and bale twine collected?

You have two options – engage Ellwaste who will provide a comprehensive on farm collection service (charges apply), or collect and delivery your used silage wrap, bunker wrap or sausage wrap to one of a number of convenient drop off points at no charge providing the wrap is clean and in a wool bale.

Before your silage wrap, bunker wrap or sausage wrap can be recycled, there are a couple of things you need to do: After you have fed out your silage:

1) Shake the wrap to get rid of excess soil, stones and silage contamination.

2) Roll each bale wrap into a tight ball about the size of a football and place it into a storage pack such as a wool bale or bulker bag. Please note do not mix silage wrap, bunker wrap or sausage wrap into the same bale, each type of wrap needs to have a separate bale.

3) Store in a clean, dry site on the farm. Once your wool bale is full, either contact Ellwaste to arrange collection (charges apply) or deliver it to one of the locations listed below for free.

For more information about this program, click here.

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Scrap Metal Recycling

Within the Central Murray region each of the member councils has in place a contract for scrap metal collection at their landfills and transfer station sites. Each site has an area put aside for storage of scrap metal.

A regular scrap metal collection service is provided by the contractors.

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Waste Oil Collection Facilities

Across the Central Murray region that are a number Waste Oil Collection Facilities set up to take household waste oil. These sites are situated at Donald, Birchip, Sea Lake, Kerang, Cohuna, Wedderburn, Boort, Pyramid Hill, Inglewood, Newbridge, Swan Hill, Manangatang and Robinvale. There will also soon be facilities at Moulamein, Barham and Koraleigh.

These oil collection facilities can accept:

Sump Oil
Engine Oil
Gear Oil
Hydraulic Oil

During the 2005/2006 year 19,840 litres of waste oil was collected from these facilities.

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Infrastructure Program

To encourage best practice waste management across Victoria, Sustainability Victoria offers an infrastructure program which provides funding to Councils and other eligible bodies to undertake upgrades and improvements, or to develop new waste management and resource recovery facilities.

The CMRWMG, its member Councils, and other organisations within the Central Murray region have received funding to undertake a number of valuable projects over the last five years.