E-waste

What is e-waste

E-waste is any item with a plug, battery or power cord that is no longer working or wanted. It covers a whole range of items from phones and refrigerators to fluorescent light tubes.

E-waste program

To protect our environment and recover more precious resources, the Victorian Government is banning all e-waste from landfill from 1 July 2019.

This means that residents will no longer be able to put any e-waste in their kerbside bins, and will instead have to take them to one of Loddon Shire Council's waste facilities.

Why recover it?

Electronic waste is growing up to three times faster than general municipal waste. When you consider what is inside e-waste and that it can be recovered and made into something else, it makes no sense to bury electronic objects in the ground once we are finished with them.

It contains materials that we can recover and reuse.

E-waste contains a whole range of valuable non-renewable materials such as tin, nickel, zinc, aluminium, copper, silver and gold. Although only very small amounts of each of these precious metals go into making any one device, when they are collected in large numbers the amounts can quickly add up. For example, a million mobile phones contain an estimated 15–16 tonnes of copper, 340–350 kilograms of silver and 24–34 kilograms of gold. When you consider there are more than 22 million discarded mobile handsets in Australia and growing, we’re throwing away a lot of precious resources. Furthermore, throwing e-waste into landfill is having real consequences on the availability of core materials used in electronic devices. Without change to the way we dispose of e-waste, it is estimated that lead, silver and zinc will become extremely scarce as soon as 2030.

It contains potentially hazardous materials

Many forms of e-waste contain heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium as well as ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) and flame retardants. Even in small amounts, these dangerous chemicals can cause environmental contamination. But when you multiply it by the millions of e-waste items being left in landfills, the situation becomes much more serious. 

Where do I take it?

E-waste will be received at any of Council's Landfills and Transfer Stations during normal operating hours.

** Denotes e-waste items which are subject to a fee due to special handling required. Please refer to Waste Management in Council's current fees & charges(PDF, 409KB)  document or download the Waste Facility Times and Costs flyer(PDF, 247KB) .