NAWMA offers residents a variety of recycling services as outlined below.
Kerbside collection of household recycling (yellow-lid bins)
Please place the following items in your yellow-lid bin for recycling:
• Glass bottles and jars (remove steel or aluminium lids and place inside can of same metal type for recycling)
• Plastic containers (lids off, these can be collected in a clear PET container)
• Steel and aluminium cans, including empty aerosol cans
• Clean aluminium foil and trays (rolled into fist-sized balls)
• Milk and juice cartons
• Paper and cardboard
Note: It is important that recyclable items are not inside plastic bags when in the yellow-lid bin because they cannot be processed at the NAWMA Material Recovery Facility (MRF) like this. If recyclable items are presented in a plastic bag, the bag and all of its contents may be sent to landfill.
All small pieces of hard plastics (not including foams or expanded polystyrene) should be collected in a clear PET container. This ensures NAWMA’s other recycling streams like paper and cardboard are not contaminated and therefore more of these can be recycled. It also means that the small plastic items do not escape into the environment and cause pollution and injure wildlife.
The collected plastic pieces will be sent to a downstream processor who will retrieve the material that can be identified as recyclable. Generally speaking, this is around 2/3 of the items because the composition of plastics this size is not always readily identifiable.
Examples of small pieces of hard plastic that are acceptable for inclusion into a clear PET bottle include bread tags, bottle tops, pen lids and measuring cups.
A range of items including electronic waste, gas cylinders and x-rays can be recycled at NAWMA’s two Resource Recovery Centres. Residents can recycle household quantities of clean, white, rigid polystyrene packaging foam for free when they take it to the Edinburgh North Resource Recovery Centre, any day of the week. A full list of items that can be recycled or disposed of can be viewed here or to search your item visit Recycling from A-Z. Note: fees may apply for some items.
Mobo Group Salvage and Save store
Salvage and Save is an initiative of Mobo Group located at the Edinburgh North Resource Recovery Centre site. The low-cost retail shop accepts good quality donations which are sold back to the community, reducing the volume of material sent to landfill. They can even offer a free pick-up service for quality items that meet their criteria.
Scout Recycling Centre
Scout Recycling is also located at the Edinburgh North Resource Recovery Centre site. You can get 10 cent cash refund for CDL cans and bottles. Scouts will also pay for items like scrap metal and car batteries. See their website for more details.
Food and green organics composting
Residents can order a 140 litre or 240 litre FOGO (green-lid) bin to divert food waste and garden clippings. Find details here.
Larger quantities of green waste are accepted at NAWMA’s Resource Recovery Centres for processing into compost (fees apply).
Hard waste service
Residents of NAWMA’s constituent councils can access the free hard waste service each financial year. Hard waste collection and hard waste drop-off services are available. For a list of acceptable and non-acceptable items, see the Terms & Conditions page.
Other recycling opportunities
Some items that cannot be recycled at NAWMA’s facilities can be recycled via other programs, find details here.
Another opportunity is to act as a collection point for more unusual items. Community groups, businesses or schools can be collection points to recycle items such as empty toothpaste tubes, pens, coffee capsules etc. Contact Terra Cycle for details on how you can get involved.
For further recycling information please visit Which Bin SA.
