Last updated: November 2026
Sydney's household waste bins go by lid colour. Red is for general waste, the yellow lid is the recycling bin and green takes garden organics, plus food scraps where your council runs FOGO. Some councils, Mosman and Northern Beaches among them, add a blue lid bin for paper and cardboard.
Your council decides the fine print, and neighbours in NSW don't always agree. So treat the lists below as the common ground, and your own council's waste and recycling page as the last word.
Sydney bin colours at a glance
The NSW EPA publishes a table of standard lid colours, taken from Australian Standard AS 4123.7. The bins themselves are dark green or black. The lid is what tells you what goes in.
| Lid colour | What it's for | Good to know | |---|---|---| | Red | Garbage (general waste) | For what can't be recycled or composted | | Yellow | Recycling: bottles, cans, jars and containers | Takes paper and cardboard too, unless you also have a blue lid | | Blue | Paper and cardboard | Only in councils that run a separate paper service | | Lime green (most councils just say green) | Garden organics, and food under FOGO | Food goes in only where FOGO has started |
What is the blue lid bin in NSW?
A blue lid bin is for paper and cardboard. That's the colour the EPA's table gives it, and it's how Northern Beaches uses it: boxes, cardboard and paper go in blue, and containers go in yellow. Mosman runs the same split. Houses there get a 140 litre blue lidded bin for paper and cardboard, emptied fortnightly on alternate weeks to the containers.
Plenty of areas don't have one. Randwick and North Sydney, for example, take paper with the containers. If there's no blue lid at your place, your paper and cardboard go in the recycling bin with everything else, and if you've moved from somewhere that had one, that's the habit to break.
What goes in the red lid general waste bin?
The red lid is for whatever can't be recycled or composted, and it's the one to fill last. Randwick and North Sydney accept much the same things:
- Plastic bags, snack wrappers and other soft plastics
- Polystyrene (Randwick also takes it at its recycle centre, and our guide to disposing of polystyrene foam covers the other options)
- Nappies
- Broken crockery and cups
- Wet wipes and used tissues
- Broken glass
- Food scraps, where there's no FOGO service (North Sydney's red lid takes them, for example)
It isn't a catch-all, though. North Sydney won't take e-waste, oil, paint, chemicals, gas bottles, fire extinguishers, syringes, or building materials and concrete in it. Paint and chemicals can go to a Household Chemical CleanOut or a Community Recycling Centre, and our household chemical cleanout guide explains how those work.
What goes in the yellow lid recycling bin?
The yellow lid recycling bin takes clean, empty containers, and in many areas paper and cardboard as well. Randwick's version is a fair picture of Sydney:
- Paper and cardboard, including empty pizza boxes
- Aluminium, steel and aerosol cans
- Plastic bottles, tubs and containers
- Milk and juice cartons
- Glass bottles and jars
Ignore the triangle. Randwick points out that the number stamped inside it only tells you what type of plastic the tub is made from, not whether your council will recycle it, so its rule of thumb is simpler: a single-use plastic bottle, tub or container goes in.
Aluminium foil is fine too, once it's scrunched into a ball about the size of a tennis ball. The City of Sydney says that's what makes it heavy enough for the machinery to sort.
Building materials, needles, polystyrene and clothing stay out. Bin full by the middle of the fortnight? Crush the cans and bottles and break the boxes down, which Randwick reckons can free up as much as 30% of the space.
Everything else, including the question of lids on or off, is in our yellow recycling bin guide. Broken glass, mirrors and window panes follow their own rules, set out in how to dispose of glass waste in Sydney.
What goes in the green lid bin?
Garden organics. Planet Ark's listing for Northern Beaches is typical: grass clippings, garden prunings, small branches, twigs, weeds and flowers.
Where FOGO (food organics and garden organics) is running, food goes in with the garden waste and gets turned into compost. Inner West already does this, with a 240 litre green lid FOGO bin emptied every week.
Not every household gets one by default, as North Sydney's row in the table below shows. For what can and can't go in, and how the FOGO changeover affects you, see our guide to green bin rules in Sydney.
Bin sizes and collection days across Sydney councils
Bin sizes are set locally, and so is how often each one is emptied. Four councils show how much the sizes and pick-up days vary:
| Council | Red lid | Yellow lid | Green lid | |---|---|---|---| | North Sydney | 80 litres, weekly | 140 litres, weekly | Bought separately | | Inner West | 120 litres | 240 litres, fortnightly | 240 litres FOGO, weekly | | Randwick | 240 litres (140 on request), fortnightly for houses | 240 litres | FOGO | | Blue Mountains | 140 litres, weekly | 240 litres, fortnightly | 240 litres, fortnightly |
Apartments often share. North Sydney gives three units one 240 litre red lid between them.
In North Sydney, extra rubbish left beside your waste bins doesn't get taken either. There's a cap on how many each property can have emptied, and boxes or bags sitting next to the approved one stay where they are.
Sydney bin facts and figures
- On average, 87% of what goes into a City of Sydney yellow lid gets recycled. The rest goes to landfill, usually because of wrong items such as soft plastics (City of Sydney, published 2021, updated November 2025).
- By 1 July 2030, NSW councils must give every household that has a red lid service a FOGO service as well (NSW EPA, updated June 2026).
- 70 NSW councils already run FOGO or are planning to (NSW EPA, 2026).
- Greater Sydney is predicted to run out of landfill capacity for red lid waste by 2030 or earlier (NSW EPA, 2026).
The most common bin mistakes in Sydney
A handful of items cause most of the trouble in Sydney's kerbside bins. These are the ones that keep getting flagged. For a few more, read the recycling mistakes Sydney households make.
Bagging your recycling
Recycling goes in loose. Northern Beaches Council warns that one plastic bag can send a whole bag of recycling to landfill, and Randwick says plastic bags jam the sorting machinery. Tip the recycling out of the bag and put the empty bag in the red one.
Soft plastics with the recycling
Plastic bags and snack wrappers can't be recycled at the kerb. The City of Sydney suggests the Woolworths stores that are trialling soft plastics recycling. If there isn't one near you, they go in the red lid.
Batteries, and anything with one hidden inside
None of your household bins will take them. The NSW EPA says one battery in a bin can spark a fire. Northern Beaches treats anything with a hidden battery the same way, along with gas canisters and butane. Tape the terminals and take loose batteries to a B-cycle drop-off; plenty of supermarkets, hardware stores and electronics shops have one.
Light globes
Wrapping a dead globe in newspaper and putting it out with the general waste sounds sensible, and in some places it's exactly what you're told to do. The Hills Shire asks residents to wrap broken light globes in newspaper and put them in the red lidded bin. Two other councils say the opposite. North Sydney lists light globes as not accepted in its red lid, and Randwick says LED, halogen, incandescent and fluorescent bulbs don't belong in any kerbside bin. This is one to check on your own council's page before bin night. In the City of Sydney, small bulbs can go to the free recycling stations in libraries and customer service centres.
Takeaway coffee cups
A paper cup looks like it should be recyclable. At the kerb, it isn't. Randwick and Northern Beaches both put coffee cups and their lids in general waste, and the NSW EPA keeps them out of FOGO as well.
Mattresses, furniture and other bulky items
None of these go in a kerbside bin, whatever its colour. There are separate pick-ups instead. The City of Sydney takes whitegoods, mattresses and furniture in a free weekly service, and quotes about a week to book one. North Sydney runs a fortnightly pre-booked bulky waste collection, and Inner West residents book a household clean-up.
When kerbside collection is not enough
Council bins are sized for an ordinary week. A clear-out, a move or a renovation can fill them in an afternoon, and the bulky pick-up might be a week away.
Paul can take what the bins can't. There's no load limit, mattresses go with no limit per job and no extra charge, and Paul's team lifts and loads the lot. Ring 0407 125 125 before midday and Paul can usually collect the same day, or get a free quote on hard rubbish removal in Sydney.
