Hurstville City Council
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Plastic Bags

Hurstville City Council encourages residents to say “no” to plastic bags by taking along your own reusable bags when you go shopping.

Australians each use almost 250 plastic bags each per year for a total of 5 billion plastic bags annually. Most plastic bags end up as litter or buried in a landfill site, and each bag takes up to 1000 years to break down.

Plastic bags can block stormwater drains, are responsible for the deaths of thousands of birds, whales, seals, turtles and other marine life every year, and also kill and injure many land mammals and birds.

Disposing of plastic bags

Plastic bags should never be disposed of in household yellow-lid recycling bins. They jam machinery at the recycling facility and cause a lot of problems. If you put your recycling into a plastic bag before it goes in the recycling bin, operators don't have time to rip the bags open and all your recycling ends up going to landfill. If you need to throw away a plastic bag, it should only go into your red-lid rubbish bin.

Alternatives to plastic bags

Council sells handy fold up carry bags for $1. To purchase, simply visit our Customer Service Centre.

Recycle your plastic bags

Coles and Woolworths accept supermarket plastic bags for recycling into new products. Place your bags in the special bins near the supermarket entrance. If your Coles or Woolworths doesn't have a bin, contact the store manager and request that one is provided.

You can bring the thicker plastic bags often used by speciality and department stores to Council’s Customer Service Centre for recycling. Council will send your bags to a plastics recycler to be manufactured into industrial plastic sheeting for the building industry. Please ensure your bags are not contaminated with food or liquid.

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