Australian Capital Territory bin collection schedules

How bin collection works in the ACT

The ACT is the odd one out in Australian waste collection: there are no local councils. The ACT Government runs a single territory wide kerbside service for all of Canberra through City Services, so every suburb follows the same system, and the only thing that changes from street to street is the collection day.

The standard setup is a weekly red lid general waste collection and fortnightly yellow lid recycling. Green lid garden organics bins are available across Canberra, and the territory has been trialling FOGO, collecting food scraps together with garden waste, ahead of a wider rollout tied to new processing capacity.

Canberra has run a container deposit scheme since 2018, refunding 10 cents per eligible container at return points around the city. Households also get access to free bulky waste collection, and the Mugga Lane and Mitchell resource management centres take green waste, e-waste and household recycling drop offs.

Because one government runs the whole service, changes land everywhere at once: a public holiday arrangement or a new bin type applies to all of Canberra on the same schedule, which makes the ACT far more predictable than the council by council patchwork elsewhere.