You may think you can get away with chucking out a greasy pizza box or a random plastic bag in your yellow bin on the odd occasion.
But in the world of recycling, everything that doesn’t belong can add up, meaning a heavily “contaminated” bin can cause an entire truckload to be sent straight to landfill.
Monash Council says the extra cost is continuing to pile up, prompting it to write to the Prime Minister expressing "extreme disappointment" over the government's decision to abandon national packaging standards, arguing the biggest changes need to happen before plastic reaches the kerbside bin.
What was the plan? The federal government committed in 2023 to national packaging standards, but Environment Minister Murray Watt announced in September that national reforms would not be delivered in this term of government because of concerns about costs to consumers, instead revealing a broader roadmap involving state and federal co-operation.
The local push: During a council meeting on September 29, mayor Stuart James and councillor Brian Little moved to write to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressing the council’s “extreme disappointment” over the decision to abandon national packaging standards.
The council also agreed to write to Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt, urging the government to reinstate the planned reforms.
Councillor Little said the easiest way to reduce plastic packaging waste was to simplify how it is produced.
🗣️ “We are at the end of the chain,” he told the chamber. “We have to deal with all of this plastic that’s being produced.”
Environmental impacts: The problem extends beyond what residents put in their bins.
If Australia had recycled all the packaging that went to landfill in 2020-21, it could have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tonnes – or the equivalent savings delivered by removing 740,000 cars from the road every year.
Problems piling up: The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), a not-for-profit organisation working towards a circular economy, found that around 86 percent of packaging was able to be recycled in 2023/24, but only about 20 percent was actually processed, with about one million tonnes of plastic ending up in landfills or littered each year.
According to a report commissioned by the Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR), if the amount of plastic waste sent to landfill is not reduced, it will create cumulative environmental costs of $32 billion by 2050.
The local issues: In a small attempt at combatting the issues, Monash has moved residential landfill and recycling collections to fortnightly, with food and garden organics collected weekly.
However, contamination continues to be a problem in processing recycling, with the council saying a heavily contaminated bin could cause an entire truckload of recycling or food and garden waste to be sent to landfill. Contaminants could include plastic bags, greasy pizza boxes or single-use coffee cups.
During its 2025 kerbside waste audit, Monash Council found about 160 grams of contaminated plastic ended up in each household’s recycling bins every week. The council also found that 82.73 percent of every kilogram of materials disposed of in recycling bins was recyclable.
Victoria’s proposed four-bin system and container deposit scheme are also intended to increase recovery and reduce what ends up in landfill.
A streamlined strategy: Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence director, Rose Read, said the current rate of recycling was low and not likely to increase because of the market’s reliance on “virgin plastic” – new plastic created from raw petrochemicals like crude oil – which is significantly cheaper than locally recycled materials.
“The rate of plastic recycling will not increase without legislation to require companies to recover their own waste,” she told the Eastern Melburnian.
ACOR chief executive Suzanne Toumbourou said the cost for making waste less recyclable was being borne by councils and by extension, ratepayers.
“The less recyclable packaging is, the more waste is generated that local governments have to pay for,” she told the Eastern Melburnian. “The material that can’t be recycled costs more to go to landfill. At the moment, brands are putting packaging into the market that is left to local government to clean up, rather than brands being made responsible for supporting the recycling system.”
Thumbnail Image Credit: JoslynLM