Recycling Hub

We have a Recycling Hub in the Riverside Office in Eden Street, providing the opportunity to recycle more of your household products. A full list of where items should be disposed of can be found in our A-Z guide to recycling and waste.

Items which can be recycled in the Riverside Recycling Hub include:

Eye Glasses which are collected for the Lions Australia Recycle for Sight Program which refurbishes old glasses for men, women and children in need all over the world.

Mobile Phones and Accessories for the MobileMuster program. MobileMuster is the product stewardship program of the mobile phone industry and is accredited by the federal government. It is voluntarily funded by all of the major handset manufacturers and network carriers to provide a free mobile phone recycling program in Australia to the highest environmental standard. The program is committed to raising awareness and educating the community on why it is important to recycle mobile phones.

Household Batteries including regular AA and AAA, as well as watch batteries, NBN and E-Bicycle batteries. These are then taken to City of Launceston’s Waste Centre and recycled by Ecocycle. Did you know that you can’t dispose of batteries in your general waste bin? When dumped in landfill, batteries can leak a range of toxic substances, including lead, mercury and cadmium, into the environment.

Printer Toners and Cartridges which cannot be recycled in your kerbside recycling bin. They are made up of a complex mix of materials that can be turned into new products, including plastics, metal, inks and toners. When they are disposed of into landfill, these resources are lost. That’s why Planet Ark launched Cartridges 4 Planet Ark, delivering a zero waste to landfill promise, constantly finding innovative ways to turn old cartridges into new products.

Fluorescent Light Globes and Tubes, compact fluoros (CFLs), HIDs and metal halides, are taken to City of Launceston’s Waste Centre for recycling. Fluro Globes and Tubes can’t be recycled in your kerbside recycling and should be handled very carefully as they are filled with Mercury. Recycling fluorescent household globes can also recover other valuable materials like ceramic, glass, aluminium and phosphor that are used in products like fertilizer, aluminium cans and insulation batts. Incandescent globes and halogens can simply be wrapped in paper and disposed of in the garbage bin.

CD’s and DVD’s which are recycled through Recycal where they are shredded to separate the aluminium and the polycarbonate, which are both used for manufacturing. If you have a large number you can drop them off to Recycal directly but you will be required to pay for them to be recycled. Please ensure you remove the plastic case and only drop off the actual CD.

Small E-waste is recycled by Tech Collect. Large E-waste can be taken to our Waste Transfer Stations or directly to City of Launceston Waste Centre. E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world with 95-98% of the valuable materials from e-waste items such as televisions and computers, recovered and reused in the manufacture of new items. Most consumers are unaware that when electronic goods are purchased, a certain amount of the purchase price is set aside and distributed to co-regulatory organisations to manage and recycle these electronic items responsibly at the end of the item’s life. You can send your items to Tech Collect directly for a $14.95 flat rate fee. Further information is available on the Tech Collect Website.

X-Rays are taken to Recycal for recycling through Ecocycle. Recycling of silver occurs using an electrolytic process, films are placed in a chemical bath that dissolves the silver-containing imaging layer. When an electric current is passed through the solution pure metallic silver is deposited on one of the electrodes. The backing film that gives X-rays their strength is made from a plastic similar to the type used in soft drink and fruit juice bottles. It goes into a commodity plastic recycling stream and could end up in products ranging from shampoo bottles to polyester fleece clothing. These can also be dropped to Recycal in Rocherlea directly, for free.

Oral Care products are recycled through the Terracycle program. This includes manual and electric tooth brushes, tooth paste tubes, floss containers & oral care packaging (but no cardboard). Once collected, the tubes and brushes are separated by composition, shredded and melted into hard plastic that can be remoulded to make new recycled products. Did you know that some toothpaste tubes can now be recycled in your kerbside recycling collection? Look for the Australasian Recycling Logo on the product to see if yours qualifies for the service.

Plastic Bread Tags are recycled through Aussie Bread Tags. They have been collecting bread tags nationally in Australia since September 2018 and now have more than 100 collection points across the country. In February 2019 they started local recycling through Transmutation - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in Robe, SA, where the tags are recycled into products such as door knobs and bowls.

We have a new Recycling Hub in the Beaconsfield Office in West Street, providing the opportunity to recycle more of your household products. A full list of where items should be disposed of can be found in our A-Z guide to recycling and waste.

Items which can be recycled in the Beaconsfield Recycling Hub include:

Eye Glasses which are collected for the Lions Australia Recycle for Sight Program which refurbishes old glasses for men, women and children in need all over the world.

Hearing Aids which Lions International send away to be refurbished and provided to those who are financially limited. For more information visit the Lions Clubs Website.