You are here:

Better bins for a greener Clayton campus

We've added new bins specifically for recycling cans and bottles at the Clayton Campus Centre. You'll find these new bins, along with new general waste bins in three busy spots near the Northern Plaza (outside the main food outlets).

These new bins are designed to make sorting your waste easier. By keeping cans and bottles separate from other rubbish, we can recover more aluminium cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles to be recycled into new products.

This simple change supports Monash's circular economy commitments and helps us stretch towards our ambitious goal – diverting 72 per cent of campus waste from landfill by 2028.

What goes in the cans and bottles recycling bins?

These bins are for cans and bottles only. Please use this quick guide when sorting your waste:

Accepted items	Unaccepted items
Aluminium drink cans Plastic beverage bottles Glass drink bottles	Takeaway coffee cups and lids Smoothie and bubble tea cups Food packaging and wrappers General waste

Why does correct sorting matter?

Many takeaway items commonly used on campus – including coffee cups, smoothie cups and compostable food packaging – cannot be recycled.

Correct sorting helps create cleaner recycling streams and improves the recovery of valuable materials. Even a small amount of the wrong waste means that good, recyclable materials might be rejected and sent to landfill.

New signs are designed to make sorting easier and more intuitive to choose the right bin.

Buildings and Property will monitor how well these new bins are working to better understand waste-sorting behaviours on campus.

This is part of a broader strategy that will help us plan and improve waste systems across the Clayton campus over the coming decades.

Frequently Asked Questions

A lot of waste around the Campus Centre – like coffee cups, takeaway beverage containers and compostable packaging – cannot be recycled.
When these materials are placed in the regular recycling bins, they contaminate this recycling stream. A dedicated bin for cans and bottles helps ensure aluminium, glass and plastic drink containers can be collected and recycled more effectively.
Only drink containers should be placed in these bins. This includes Aluminium drink cans, plastic drink bottles and glass drink bottles.
The following items are not accepted:
- Takeaway coffee cups
- Smoothie and bubble tea cups
- Compostable packaging and bioplastics
- Food scraps
- Wrappers and general waste
- Paper and cardboard.
Check the signs on each bin if you’re unsure where to put your waste.
Many takeaway coffee cups are made from a combination of materials, including paper, plastic or compostable lining. These products cannot be processed through recycling so they need to go in the landfill bin.
Compostable packaging and bioplastic products require a different process. They cannot be recycled with regular cans and bottles, so please keep them out of this bin.
The new signs make it easier to see what goes in each bin. Clearer instructions help everyone sort their waste correctly and improve our recycling.
Waste from these bins are collected by Monash’s waste contractor, Cleanaway. They are taken to Cleanaway’s special facility where they are sorted and bundled before being recycled into new aluminium, plastic or glass materials.
Maintaining a clean stream helps maximise the amount of aluminium, glass and plastic that can be successfully recycled into new products. Learn more about Cleanaway’s collection process here.
Buildings and Property will monitor how well the new bins and signs are working, and how waste is sorted and the quality of the recycling. What we learn will help us improve waste infrastructure across the Clayton campus in the future.
We’ve placed the new bins in busy areas around the Campus Centre because a lot of drinks are consumed there. We also chose these spots because the recycling bins in these areas were often highly contaminated with food packaging. The new bins will help us reduce this problem and recycle as many clean cans and bottles as possible.
If you have other items you need to recycle like paper, you can still head to one of the other designated commingled recycling bins directly inside Campus Centre.
For further information about the bins or Monash University’s Circular Economy program, please contact the Sustainability team at environment@monash.edu.

Campus Sustainability

Campus Sustainability

Better bins for a greener Clayton campus

What goes in the cans and bottles recycling bins?

Why does correct sorting matter?

Frequently Asked Questions