Making sure you put the right things in your recyling bin is important to help save the environment. 

Some of the items you might place in your bin instead of you recyling can take years to break down, if they ever do. Make sure all recyleable items go into the right bin. 

Plastic bags: 10 to 20 years

Unfortunately they are not recyclable. However the easy solution is to always carry a reusable bag with you. Alternatively, all Woolworths and Coles supermarkets have a place where you can give back your plastic bags.

Tin cans: 100 years

Tin cans are easily recycled. Everyime you throw the tin from your fruit, baked beans or spaghetti into the wrong bin it will take a century to break down.

Rinse them out and pop them in the recycle bin.

Beer/soft drink cans: 200 to 500 years

A soft drink can takes somewhere between 200 and 500 years to decompose. That is a long time for a very small piece of aluminium. Recycling just one can not only saves hundreds of years of biodegrading, it also saves enough energy to power a television for three hours.

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Milk/juice bottles: five years

All milk or juice bottles can go in the recycle bin. Lids are a particularly difficult one. They can definately be put in the recycle bin, it is just a matter of whether they should be on or off the bottle. For Kurrajong Recyclers leave them on, Elouera and Valmar take them off.

Glass bottles and jars: never

Glass bottles and Jars never break down. But they can be recycled in so many ways. Sending a glass jar to landfill instead of putting it in the recycle bin is literally the same as dropping it on the ground and knowing it will be there forever.

Paper: Two and a half months

Paper is the most wonderful thing ever in terms of recycling. It can be easily transformed into new paper or other items such as egg containers, tissue paper or paper towel. If everyone recycled their paper it would mean 40 per cent of the current landfill would disappear.

That’s right, 40 per cent of rubbish going to landfill right now is perfectly recyclable paper.

More information at Recycle Night​