Bin Health Checks

Let's get it sorted Rocky Region! Knowing how to sort your household items into the right bin increases resource recovery, builds a local circular economy and helps reach zero waste to landfill.

What is a Bin Health Check? A Bin Health Check is a simple ‘lift the lid’ visual health assessment of household bins.

How Does It Work? During a Bin Health Check, Bin Health Professionals will conduct a quick visual assessment of household bins on collection day. This involves:

Seeing if recyclable items are placed loose and clean in the yellow lid recycling bin,
Spotting for any contamination in the yellow lid bin, and
Scanning for lost recyclable items in the red lid general waste bin.

After the check, households receive feedback in the form of a bin health tag on the yellow lid bin, along with helpful information and resources to help households get their recycling sorted.

No contents in the bin are touched by the Bin Health Professionals during the visual bin health assessment.

Bin Health Check Programs

2025 Bin Health Check Program (Regional)

The results are in! Check out the 2025 Bin Health Check Snapshot here(PDF, 3MB).

Rockhampton Regional Council’s 2025 Bin Health Check Program was delivered from November 2024 to November 2025, supported by the Queensland Government’s Recycling and Jobs Fund.

More than 31,000 educational resource packs were delivered to households across the Rockhampton Region, and over 20,000 kerbside bins were checked by a team of Bin Health Professionals.

The initiative aimed to help households sort their waste and recycling correctly, reduce contamination in yellow lid bins and recover lost recyclables from the red lid bin.

Bin Health Professionals recorded their observations and left a tailored feedback tag on each yellow lid bin. These insights into local bin use habits and recycling knowledge will help shape future waste education campaigns.

The program also awarded local BINfluencers from suburbs across the region, recognised for leading by example - reminding their neighbours when bin night is, keeping their yellow lid bin free from contamination, and ensuring recyclables are always loose, clean, and sorted.

Why are Bin Health Checks important?

Council's Resource Recovery Strategy sets a goal to reduce contamination in yellow lid bins from 22% to 10% by 2040.

Studies have shown that providing personalised bin behaviour feedback to households, through a bin tagging program, is an effective intervention to:

Improve recycling quality (reduce contamination in yellow lid bins), and
Increase quantity of recycling (improve loss of recyclables into red lid bins).

Many other Queensland Councils, including Townsville, Mackay, and Cairns Regional Councils, have successfully implemented ‘bin tagging’ programs to help improve their community’s household bin sorting habits.