Plastic Lid Recycling

We’re keeping plastic lids out of the ocean, and turning them into useable products.

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There can be a lot of confusion when it comes to recycling your plastic lids in Geelong. So let’s clear things up!

Unfortunately, the big machines that are used to sort recycling in most councils are not designed to handle small lids, and as a result, these lids can contaminate other recycled materials, or end up in landfill.

We want to avoid that!

 

Which lids go where?

  • If the lid is the same colour as the bottle: it can be left on the bottle and put in your recycling bin (this is a relatively new thing).
  • If the lid is larger than a credit card: remove it from the bottle and place in your recycling bin.
  • If the lid is smaller than a credit card: wash it, remove the white insert, and when you have enough, take them to a collection point (see below).

Collection Points

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You can drop off your washed lids to the following places in Geelong.

 

Lid Drop Off Locations

  • Eastern Hub Geelong, 285a McKillop St, East Geelong
  • APCO Service Station, 64 Portarlington Rd, Newcomb
  • City of Greater Geelong Wurriki Nyal Civic Precinct, Geelong
  • Lifeline Shop, 129 Marshalltown, Grovedale
  • Lifeline Shop, 309 Boundary Rd, Breakwater
  • Surfside Primary School, Ocean Grove
  • St Thomas Primary School, Drysdale
  • Coles, 621-659 Bellarine Hwy, Gateway Plaza, Leopold
  • Coles, Murradoc Rd, Drysdale
  • Coles, Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre
  • Coles, Corner Bromfield St and Queen St, Colac
  • Coles, 77 The Terrace,  Ocean Grove
  • Coles Belmont Village Shopping Centre, 65 High St, Belmont
  • Coles Belmont, 158-162a High St, Belmont

 

Please note: We have other locations that are keen to be collection points, but the collection point is only valuable if there are also volunteers who are willing to pick up the lids and sort them into their plastic types and colours.

Cleaning and sorting

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Lids have to be sorted into different plastic types before they can be reused into new products.

The real heroes of this whole process are the volunteers who pick up the lids from the collection points.

Over many hours, these volunteers:

  • Take the lids home
  • Sort them into plastic types (more about this below)
  • Wash and dry them (if everyone did this before dropping them off it would remove this step for our volunteers)
  • Sort them into colours

 

Plastic types?

There are many different plastic types used in making lids. The two plastic types that are best for reusing are HDPE (#2) and LDPE (#4).

They are non-toxic thermoplastics that are easy to work with (for a full guide to different plastic types, read/watch this).

Our volunteers separate the lids into #2, #4, and other. The #2s and #4s go to the Geelong Tech School, the rest go to GT Recycling.

What happens next?

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Once sorted into colours and type, the volunteers take the lids to either the Geelong Tech School or GT Recycling to be made into new products.

 

Geelong Tech School

We put the lids through a shredder and granulator that breaks the lids up into little bits. These bits are then put into our Injection Moulding machines by students to create new products as part of our ‘Reuse Revolution‘ program. The great thing about sorting and using the #2 and #4 plastic is that these products can always be recycled again using the same process.

 

GT Recycling

GT Recycling take the lids, sort them into the different plastic types, ensure they are clean and then process them into small pellets. These pellets are sold to manufacturers to make more products through injection moulding, blow moulding or extrusion. The lids can be recycled many times over in this way.

How can you help?

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Many hand make light work! The job of cleaning and sorting the plastic is quite simple, however, it does take time.

At the moment this work is being completed by a small number of volunteers. If there were more people able to contribute, this would make it easier for everyone. If you would like to be involved in collecting lids, cleaning them and sorting them, we’d love to hear from you!