1. Rubbish is put in the red bin: Remember to only put rubbish that cannot be recycled or composted in your red lid rubbish bin. Often this is smelly or used rubbish like tissues, nappies, dog poop and food scraps. You can put this rubbish in a bag before it goes in the bin.
2. The rubbish truck empties the red bin: Each week your red lid rubbish bin is emptied into a truck specially designed to collect this material. Make sure your bins are put out on the kerbside the night before your bin day ready for the driver.
3. The rubbish is taken to landfill: Once the rubbish collection run is finished, the truck delivers the material to the closest landfill facility. The landfill is a big hole that has been dug into the ground. The truck is weighed to check how much rubbish it has collected and then the rubbish is tipped out of the truck at the landfill site.
4. Rubbish is compacted and buried: The rubbish at the landfill is compacted to reduce the volume. This is done by using machinery that drives over the top of the rubbish squashing it and making it smaller. At the end of each day the rubbish is covered with a layer of soil or a tarp. This helps to keep rodents to a minimum and to reduce the smell.
5. Landfill gas is captured and turned into electricity: Landfill gas forms when waste breaks down. It comprises around 50% methane and 50% carbon dioxide. Gas is extracted from the landfill by using pipes and burnt in a generator to create electricity, which supplies power to the electricity grid via a transformer. On the Central Coast the landfill gas captured at our landfill sites generates the equivalent power needs for almost 5,000 homes.
6. Rubbish from your red bin stays in landfill forever: All the rubbish you put in your red lid bin will be buried in the landfill and stay there forever. We don’t recycle or reuse this rubbish. So, before you put rubbish in the red lid bin, think about whether it could be reused or recycled in another way.
