Recycling

Recycling is an essential activity to reduce waste going to landfill and to promote sustainability. The environmental benefits of recycling are well known and reducing waste in our landfills benefits our residents in the long-term by reducing the costs of building and maintaining landfill sites. We take a proactive approach to recycling throughout the region and provides recycling facilities at all major landfills and transfer stations.

There are also many actions which you and your family can take to reduce your footprint on the environment, including implementing the waste hierarchy, Reduce Reuse and Recycle.

Recycling at home

Your recycling bin has a yellow lid, to place all recyclable materials, and is collected on a fortnightly basis, on the same day as your normal rubbish bin collection.

A handy Recyclables Guide is available here for download:

Download our Recycling: It's Not Rubbish - Recycling Guide(PDF, 532KB)

Download our Frequently Asked Questions(PDF, 236KB)

Additional materials such as steel, aluminium and green waste can be recycled at the Kelsey Creek Landfill, Bowen Landfill, Cannonvale Transfer Station and Collinsville Transfer Station.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Minimising Waste

We can all take action to reduce our footprint on the environment through minimising the amount of waste that we produce, by increasing the number of items that we reuse/recycle. There are lots of ways that you can play a part!

Avoid Creating Waste in the First Place

Eliminate certain types of waste by making a few simple changes to daily activities. Say no to junk mail, catalogues and phone books - go online instead. Compost your kitchen/garden waste instead of binning it, recycle everything you can at our recycling facilities.

Reduce the Amount of Waste you Produce

Sometimes it is difficult not to produce waste. Almost everything we buy today has some form of packaging; however, we can make smart choices to reduce the amount of waste that we produce. Look for products with minimal packaging, buy in bulk, or buy items ‘loose’, i.e. do fruit and vegetables really need their own plastic bag?

Reuse where you can

Many of us have gotten into the habit of throwing things away rather than reusing. Lots of items can be reused to prolong their life. This includes plastic bags and food containers, clothes and furniture. Even if you can’t reuse an item, someone else can.

Recycling instead of disposing

If all else fails and you need to dispose of items, dispose of it in your kerbside recycling bin or at one of our recycling facilities. It only requires a little more effort; but will help in reducing the amount of waste going to the landfill and save resources and energy also.

What happens to your recycling?

Recycling from the Whitsunday region travels to the Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF) in Mackay.

The MRF weighs and sorts all recyclables before reprocessing them. The MRF uses a number of technologies to recycle, including:

  • The Krysteline Glass processing plant, which implodes glass and creates a product similar in texture to sand, which is used commercially in asphalt and pool filtration.
  • Optical Sorter, which takes photos of items and sends them to the correct sorting cage.
  • Baling, where the sorted paper, steel, plastics and aluminium materials are baled separately, ready for transport to manufacturers for reprocessing.

Household Battery Recycling Program

Batteries can be a risk to human health and the environment if disposed of inappropriately.

Household Battery Recycling Bins are located at all of our Whitsunday Regional Council Customer Service Centres and Libraries. Bins can also be found at the Collinsville and Cannonvale Transfer Stations Depots.

Simply drop your used batteries (removing any packaging) into one of the following dedicated collection units.

It is recommended that you place batteries in a zip lock bag and tape the ends of each battery with clear sticky tape.

Which batteries can be recycled?

We accept general household batteries, including AAA, AA, C, D, 9V, rechargeable household batteries, button batteries and any easy to remove batteries, such as power tool, e-bike and digital camera batteries.

Which batteries cannot be recycled?

Currently, we are unable to accept the following battery types in the collection boxes; mobile phone batteries, laptop or TV batteries, lead acid batteries or exit lighting batteries.

Mobile phones can be recycled at all Whitsundaty Regional Council Libraries and Waste Facilities.

Lead acid batteries are accepted at Cannonvale Transfer Station, Collinsville Transfer Station, Bowen Landfill and Kelsey Creek Landfill.

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