Free recycling pick-up
Get rid of your old batteries, e-waste, clothes and accessories in a safe and sustainable way by booking a free pick-up through our expanded recycling service.
We’ll pick the items up from your front kerb or rear lane the next business day and our partners will re-use or recycle them for you.
Use this service to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, contribute to a circular economy and protect our truck drivers by keeping batteries and e-waste out of bins where they can start fires.
Items Accepted:
Your data is your responsibility. Make sure all data is permanently wiped from your device before it is picked up or dropped off. Council's recycling process does not include the removal of data from devices.
Items NOT accepted:
Book a Collection
Please Note:
- Large items should be presented loosely by the kerbside in front of your home or rear lane. Place items out on the same evening you make your booking.
- Please box or bag all clothing, accessories, smaller e-waste items and batteries (make sure battery terminals are taped).
- Items will be collected within 24 hours of booking, or the next business day.
- There are no limits to the amount of collections per year, but they must be booked in.
- Make sure all personal data is deleted from devices.
More about the items you can Recycle
Batteries
Batteries contain toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury and can pose a fire hazard if they get damaged or overheat and should not be placed in general waste and recycling bins.
Please help ensure the safety of our staff and the community and never bin batteries, book a free pick-up instead.
Items Accepted:
- All household alkaline batteries eg. A, AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, 6V etc.
- Button batteries
- Rechargeable batteries
- Easily removable batteries from power tools etc.
- Car batteries (lead acid)
Items NOT Accepted:
- Vapes
- Pacemakers
- Individual Batteries over 5kg (excluding car batteries)
- Batteries that haven’t had terminals taped
- Damaged, swollen or leaking batteries (see chemical cleanout)
Each battery must not weigh more than 5kg (except car batteries) and have battery terminals taped for safety. Learn more about how to tape your batteries.
Batteries must be contained in a jar, plastic tub, box or bag as last resort. Do not leave loose batteries on the kerbside.
Batteries are recycled by our partner Ecocycle. Find out more about the recycling process.
Clothes and accessories
Australians now buy more new clothes per person than any other country, an average of 56 new items per person every year.
200,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in landfill annually – the equivalent weight of more than four Sydney Harbour Bridges. Keep your clothes and accessories out of landfill and contribute to a circular economy by booking a free pick up.
Items Accepted:
- Men’s, women’s and children’s clothing
- Handbags, hats, belts, shoes
- Jewellery
- Items must be clean, dry and can be in either good or well-worn condition (but not ripped/holes)
Items NOT Accepted:
- Underwear, socks
- Ripped, soiled, wet items
- Sheets, towels, doonas, pillows, carpets
- Anything in an unclean condition.
Please place all clothes accessories into a box/bag. Try and make it as weather proof as possible.
Items will be passed onto St Vincent de Paul for re-sale in one of their retail stores, or processed to create new textile products like rugs, mats or commercial rags.
E-waste
Australians are among the highest users of electronics in the world. It's no surprise that our e-waste - or electronic waste - is growing three times faster than the rate of our regular garbage.
E-waste needs to be kept out of landfill as it leaches hazardous materials like mercury and lead into our environment. E-waste also contains valuable materials that should be re-used instead of being lost to landfill.
Items accepted:
- Desktop computers, monitors, keyboards, mice and cables
- Laptop computers, tablets, GPS & PDA units
- Printers, scanners, copy and fax machines (household size)
- Hard drives and modems
- Video game consoles, devices and controllers/joysticks
- Mobile phones, landlines phones and cameras
- Televisions, CD players and DVD players, and remotes (remove batteries)
- Loose CDs and DVDs (please no plastic cases)
- Small appliances like blenders, toasters, kettles, hair dryers etc.
- Medium appliances like vacuum cleaners, power tools, coffee machines etc.
Please note: Your data is your responsibility. Make sure all data is permanently wiped from your device before it is picked up or dropped off. Council's recycling process does not include the removal of data from devices.
Large items can be presented loosely by the kerbside in front of your home or rear lane. You may box smaller items like cables, modems, hard drives, etc. but NO plastic bags please.
Items NOT accepted:
- Whitegoods - fridges, stoves, microwaves etc. Put these out on your scheduled clean-up day.
- LED lights, fluorescent light tubes and globes (see chemical cleanout collection).
- Video and cassette tapes (see scheduled clean-up day).
- E-waste from business (see business recycling)
- Smoke detectors
- Electric blankets
- Oil heaters
- Any other item that is not deemed e-waste as part of this service.
The e-waste collected by Council is processed by Sircel. The material is shredded and will be separated into various streams e.g. metals, plastics, glass and then sent for further processing to convert back into raw usable materials.
Other options
Televisions and computers/computer related equipment can also be dropped off at the Randwick Recycling Centre, 72 Perry Street, Matraville.
Alternatively, take a look at the following websites to find other recycling solutions for your e-waste:
Re-use is better than recycling
If you think your e-waste might be of interest to someone else, you can list it for free on our iWasteless noticeboard.
It's easy. Just post a photo, add a description of your item/s and place it on the grass verge in front of your property.
Within 24 hours of listing, your free e-waste item will either be snapped up by someone who has seen it on the noticeboard, or our e-waste collection service will make the pick-up. Either way you will be helping us reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by promoting re-use and recycling.
If you choose to list your item on the noticeboard we ask that you remove all personal data and information before presenting it for collection. Woollahra Council does not engage in communication between people listing or collecting items on the noticeboard. Read the full terms and conditions.(PDF, 69KB)