Waste & recycling
Warrnambool households have four bins: red-lid landfill, yellow-lid recycling, purple-lid glass and green-lid food and garden organics (FOGO). All are collected fortnightly: glass and recycling one week, landfill and FOGO the next. The city is split into 10 collection zones; use the council's address lookup or zone calendar to find your bin day.
New to these terms? Read them in plain English
- Bulky / hard waste collection
- Pickup or drop-off for large items that don't fit in your bins.
Bin collection at a glance
- Landfill (red lid)
- FortnightlyNappies, soft plastics, polystyrene, coffee cups and other items that can't be recycled or composted. Wrap or bag rubbish. A larger 240-litre bin is available for households with medical waste — phone the council.
- Recycling (yellow lid)
- Fortnightly (the week opposite landfill)Paper, cardboard, plastic containers, steel and aluminium, placed loose (not bagged). No glass, soft plastics, food, tissues or garden waste.
- Glass (purple lid)
- Fortnightly (same week as recycling)Glass bottles and jars, emptied and clean. The council says the glass is crushed and reused in local road projects. Extra glass can be dropped at Cleanaway, 355 Koroit Street, free of charge.
- Food and garden organics — FOGO (green lid)
- Fortnightly (same week as landfill)All food scraps, including meat, bones, dairy and citrus, plus lawn clippings, prunings and leaves. Maximum 80 kg; no soil. The council says FOGO is composted at Camperdown Compost Company.
- Hard rubbish
- No council hard rubbish collectionThe council's A–Z guide says to contact a transfer station for a quote. An annual hard waste pick-up was one of the options in the council's October 2025 waste services survey; we haven't seen a decision.
- Drop-off
- Privately run transfer stationsThe council lists Bartons Waste (20 Harrington Road), Cleanaway (355 Koroit Street), Westvic Waste (3 Hammond Place) and Wheelie Waste (57 Allansford-Wangoom Road, Allansford). They set their own fees and rules.Transfer stations →
- Find your bin day
- Council address lookup and zone calendarsPut bins out by 8 pm, at least 1 metre apart, with the lid closed.Check your bin day →
In October 2025 the council said a new kerbside collection contract was due in 2026, and surveyed residents on possible changes (day or night collections, an annual hard waste pick-up, weekly FOGO in spring, glass frequency, larger landfill bins). We haven't found the outcome. The council's website refused our requests, so we read the bins, A–Z and transfer station pages from Wayback Machine copies made between July and November 2025, when the zone calendars were for 2025–26. Check the live pages for 2026–27 calendars and any service changes.
Sources — check it yourself
- Warrnambool City Council — Kerbside Bin Collection (read from a Wayback Machine copy of 21 Nov 2025) · Nov 2025
- Warrnambool City Council — A–Z guide to recycling and waste (read from a Wayback Machine copy of 25 Nov 2025) · Nov 2025
- Warrnambool City Council — Transfer Stations / Tips (read from a Wayback Machine copy of 8 Jul 2025) · Jul 2025
- Warrnambool City Council — Have your say on the future of Warrnambool's waste services, 13 Oct 2025 (read from a Wayback Machine copy) · Oct 2025
- Victorian Government — Standardising household recycling across Victoria · Sep 2026
Figures are current as at the dates shown and may change — always confirm with the linked source. See the notice at the bottom of the page for full details and how to report a correction.