Waste & Recycling

Although there is no kerb­side recy­cling ser­vice avail­able in Alice Springs, many recy­clable items can be tak­en to the Region­al Waste Man­age­ment Facil­i­ty. Some prod­ucts are recy­cled here and some are par­tial­ly processed here and then trans­port­ed interstate.

What can I recycle?

There is no charge for res­i­den­tial recy­cling of clean items list­ed below but com­mer­cial dis­pos­al fees will be charged where applic­a­ble. See a full list of fees and charges here. To ensure that items get prop­er­ly recy­cled, res­i­dents must sep­a­rate items at the Trans­fer Sta­tion.

• Glass, bot­tles and jars
• Plas­tic bot­tles includ­ed in the 10c scheme (no refund given)
• HDPE Plas­tics
• Clean and flat­tened cardboard
• Alu­mini­um cans
• Paint
• Bat­ter­ies
• Steel items and cans
• Food waste (read more infor­ma­tion about our BiobiN here)
• Gar­den waste (exclud­ing leaf waste, cac­ti and palm fronds)
• E‑waste such as print­ers, data cables, com­put­ers (large items may incur a fee)

The fol­low­ing items can be tak­en to The Redis­cov­ery Cen­tre to be recy­cled for free:

• Mobile phones
• House­hold batteries
• Razors
• Cof­fee pods
• Print­er cartridges
• Globes
• Fur­ni­ture, build­ing mate­ri­als, gar­den tools, kitchen items, small appli­ances and mat­tress­es that are clean and in good condition.

The Redis­cov­ery Cen­tre does not accept gas items, safe­ty hel­mets, clothes, white­goods, lad­ders or tyres.

**Wine and Spir­it Bottles**

Although glass wine and spir­it bot­tles are not part of the Con­tain­er Deposit Scheme in the NT, the Alice Springs Town Coun­cil offers a 15c refund for these containers.

Wine and spir­it bot­tles can be brought to the Redis­cov­ery Cen­tre between 9.30am‑2.30pm on Sat­ur­days (with a max­i­mum of 500 wine or spir­it bot­tles per Alice Springs res­i­dent ID) to receive a refund. Read more infor­ma­tion here.

What is contamination?

Con­t­a­m­i­na­tion reduces the val­ue of the recy­clable mate­ri­als, and can lead to them hav­ing to be dis­posed of rather than recy­cled. This is why it is vital that recy­clable items are sep­a­rat­ed and clean. In addi­tion lids are to be removed from all bot­tles, jars and HDPE plas­tics, large amounts of sta­ples and tape are to be removed from card­board, food soiled card­board is to go into gen­er­al waste, and food only is to go into the Biobins – if you can’t eat it, don’t put it in!

What hap­pens to my recycling?

Glass col­lect­ed at the Region­al Waste Man­age­ment Facil­i­ty goes into the only glass crush­er in the Ter­ri­to­ry and is turned into road base, foot and bike paths, or for water­wise land­scap­ing. Crushed glass can also be pur­chased from the Redis­cov­ery Centre. 

HDPE plas­tics are processed through a gran­u­la­tor and sent to a com­pa­ny who process­es these into street bollards.

Card­board is fed into a machine and baled into 500KG cubes, ready for trans­porta­tion. The cubes are sent inter­state to a recy­cling facil­i­ty where it is recy­cled into new prod­ucts. Card­board – OPAL in Ade­laide – reprocessed box­es – next time you look at a Card­board box look for the logo OPAL!

Paint is put into con­tain­ers which the paint com­pa­ny col­lects and reuses the paint. 

Steel is bailed and sent to Ade­laide where it is melt­ed down recycled.

Gar­den pruning’s (except cac­ti and palm fronds) are mulched onsite using a tub grinder, so grass clip­pings, leaf waste, cac­ti and palm fronds need to go into gen­er­al waste so to not con­t­a­m­i­nate the mulch. This mulch is used through­out Alice Springs and can be pur­chased from the Redis­cov­ery Centre. 

E‑waste is col­lect­ed by Tech­Col­lects and is dis­man­tled with indi­vid­ual parts recy­cled or reused.

Con­crete from demo­li­tion is crushed and is used in road base in Alice Springs.

What can’t I recycle? 

The fol­low­ing items can’t be recy­cled at the Region­al Waste Man­age­ment Facil­i­ty so need to go into gen­er­al waste:

• Paper
• Mag­a­zines
• News­pa­per
• Grass clip­pings,
• Leaf waste,
• Cac­ti and
• Palm fronds

Dis­pos­ing of oth­er items

Con­struc­tion and Demo­li­tion Waste

Sort­ing con­struc­tion and demo­li­tion waste results in reduced land­fill and fees. Clean fill and rocks (less than 10cm in diam­e­ter) can be dis­posed of for free for both res­i­dents and com­mer­cial operators.

White Goods

Res­i­dents can avoid pay­ing a fee for drop­ping off their unwant­ed white goods at the Region­al Waste Man­age­ment Facil­i­ty on the first Sat­ur­day of every month. White­goods must be emp­ty and clean and only 1 item per per­son is free.