By the Bin Night Tonight team · Updated July 2026
Christmas is the waste system's grand final: the most rubbish, the most recycling confusion and the most schedule changes of the year, all in one week when nobody is paying attention. Here is the whole holiday sorted, bin by bin.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day are both public holidays, and when they land on weekdays, most councils shift that week's collections back a day or two; New Year's week often shifts again. Councils publish their Christmas arrangements from early December, and this is the one week of the year to actually check rather than trust the routine. An address search here shows adjusted dates where your council has published them to its lookup system, and your council's website or app is the fallback.
The classic Christmas failure is putting the bin out on the usual night to find the whole street's bins untouched the next morning. Leave them out; the shifted run will come. The second classic failure is the opposite: the run coming a day early in a rearranged week. December is the month for bins out the night before.
Plain paper wrapping goes in the yellow bin, and the scrunch test settles the edge cases: paper that stays scrunched recycles, wrapping that springs back open is foil or plastic film and goes in general waste. Metallic, glittered and flocked wrap is general waste, as are ribbons and bows, which tangle sorting machinery (save and reuse them instead; ribbon does not wear out). Tissue paper recycles; sticky tape in normal quantities is fine and gets screened out.
Christmas cards recycle unless they are glittered, musical (that is a battery and a circuit board, e-waste rules apply) or covered in foil. Envelopes, including window envelopes, all recycle.
Christmas cardboard will not fit one fortnightly yellow bin. Flatten everything, fill the yellow bin with the lid closed, and stage the rest in the garage for the following collection rather than stacking boxes beside the bin, where they will not be taken and may get you tagged. Big households can drop flattened cardboard free at most transfer stations, and several councils add extra recycling collections or drop off points in January precisely for this.
The party side sorts cleanly: glass bottles and cans go to your state's container deposit scheme for the 10 cent refund (a Christmas worth of drinks is real money, and the classic kids' project for the school holidays), wine bottles go in the yellow bin (or purple glass bin where you have one), and prawn shells belong in the freezer until bin night, a trick covered in our summer bin guide that earns its keep on December 26.
Real trees: cut into lengths, they go in the green organics bin over a collection or two, and many councils run January Christmas tree drop offs or kerbside tree collections that turn the street's trees into mulch; check your council site in early January. Never dump a tree on the nature strip outside an announced collection, which is ordinary illegal dumping in a festive hat.
Fake trees are not recyclable kerbside: a dead one goes to hard waste, but a live one someone else could use goes to a charity shop or a marketplace freebie listing in November, when demand briefly exists. Broken Christmas lights are e-waste (never any bin, the cords tangle machinery), solar garden decorations contain batteries and follow battery rules, and polystyrene from big gift boxes follows the foam rules: general waste unless your transfer station takes clean foam.
Plain paper wrap, yes. Foil, metallic, glittered or plastic film wrap, no; use the scrunch test, and anything that springs back open goes in general waste. Ribbons and bows never go in recycling.
Very likely, since Christmas and Boxing Day are both public holidays. Most councils shift that week back a day or two and publish arrangements in early December. Check your address here or on your council site rather than trusting the usual night.
Cut into lengths in the green organics bin, or through the January tree drop offs and mulching collections many councils run. Trees dumped on the nature strip outside an announced collection count as illegal dumping.