Ultimo recycling pop-up

83 Bay Street

(near the corner of Bay and Macarthur Streets)

Ultimo 2007

Opening hours

Tuesday
2pm to 7pm
Public holidays
Closed

A free and easy way to recycle tricky household items.

Walk, ride or link up with public transport to drop off tricky household items at our newest recycling hub. There is no access by car and street parking is limited.

We accept items that don’t belong in your bins at home like polystyrene, small electronics, batteries, clothes in great condition, x-rays and more. Read the full list of items.

Bring small items you can carry that are less than 15kg. Please make sure items are safe, clean and dry. We reserve the right to refuse items that aren’t deemed acceptable.

We can’t accept items from businesses.

Check you’re a local resident

We can only accept items from City of Sydney residents. This map shows the City of Sydney boundaries.

Bring identification with proof of your address. You may be asked for this before we can accept your items.

Visit our recycling pop-up during opening hours

We’re currently open Tuesdays, 2pm-7pm.

When you arrive, please line up and complete our check-in survey. Wait for our employees to help you unpack and sort your items for recycling. You must take home any items that are not accepted.

If you arrive outside of opening hours, don’t leave any items unattended. Items left outside opening hours will be treated as illegal dumping and you may be fined.

✔️ What you can drop off

- Clean, great condition clothes, blankets, sheets, towels, handbags, shoes and hats.
- Working, great condition hard toys.
- Only drop off items you would give to a friend.
You can only drop off smaller electronics to our Ultimo recycling pop-up. Items should be less than 15kg and fit inside a shopping bag. No larger items like TVs. No items from businesses.

If your item has a plug, a power cord or a battery we can recycle it. We can’t accept textile-based items with electric components such as electric blankets.
- Smaller household appliances: toasters, mixers, blenders, kettles, irons
- Smaller entertainment and home office equipment: laptops, computer accessories such as keyboards or mice, servers, projectors, gaming consoles, DVD players, DVDs, CDs, VHS players, cassettes, video recorders
- Phones: mobiles and landlines
- Cords, chargers and headphones
- Smaller power tools: drills, power boards. No gas or petrol-powered items
- Vapes and e-cigarettes: make sure they're empty of any liquid
- Batteries (no car batteries). To reduce fire hazards, tape the battery terminals on both ends with regular, non-conductive tape, like duct tape, clear sticky tape or electrical tape.
Remember to delete your data before dropping your device off. The recycling process doesn't include data wiping. Some electronics may be repaired, refurbished, and resold by our local processor. These items will have their data wiped before they are resold.
- Used printer cartridges from participating brands in the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark program. This includes inkjet cartridges, laser cartridges, toner bottles, fuser and drum units, fax rolls, print heads, waste hoppers/containers collectors and kits. There are 6 participating brands: Brother, Canon, Cartridge World, Epson, HP and Kyocera.
- Light bulbs including energy saving or fluorescent globes/tubes. Wrap them in newspaper and bring them in a bag or box so they don’t break.
- Rigid polystyrene/styrofoam from furniture, appliance or delivery packaging. We also accept rigid, clean food-grade polystyrene, like food containers. Keep pieces whole and remove all tape and glue. Put bendy or squishy items like foam wrap, foam sheets, packing peanuts and bean bag filling in your red lid bin at home.
- X-ray, MRI and CT scans/films – take them out of envelopes. Put envelopes and any paper scans in your yellow lid recycling bin at home.
- Paint – water and oil-based accepted. Bring paints in original containers with lids on tight. Limit of 5 containers per drop-off.
- Household gas cylinders and bottles including nitrogen, SodaStream and LPG bottles.
Items must be less than 15kg in weight and made mostly of metal. Items like umbrellas, highchairs and prams are not accepted. They have too many non-metal components.

The following household items are accepted:
- Metal kitchen items: pots and pans, baking trays, knives, cutlery, colanders, steel bowls. No whitegoods.
- Metal handheld tools: hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, nail clippers.
- Metal fasteners and fittings: nails, screws, pins, rivets, nuts and bolts. Bring small items inside a container.
- Metal dust bins and wire coat hangers. No plastic coat hangers.
- Reusable drinking bottles and bottle caps.
- Keys and metal locks.
- Jewellery made from metal only, including gold and silver. No jewellery containing pearls, gems or other non-metal items.
Bring food scraps in a reusable container or AS 4736 compostable bags, which are available at major supermarkets. Look for this symbol:

The following food is accepted:
- Leftovers, plate scrapings and spoiled food
- Fruit and vegetable peelings
- Dairy products
- Meat, small bones, fish and seafood – soft shells only, such as prawn shells
- Bread, pastries, cakes and biscuits
- Rice, grains, cereals and noodles
- Tea bags, loose tea leaves and coffee grounds.
No large bones or hard shells such as oyster or mussel shells. No food packaging including compostable packaging, plastic bags, paper towels or baking paper.

❌ What you can’t drop off

- Carpets, rugs, curtains, cushions, pillows, doonas/quilts/duvets, any textile items with electric components such as electric blankets, underwear, socks and accessories like gloves and belts.
- Board games. Soft, broken and unclean toys.

Spread the word about the Ultimo recycling pop-up

If you’re a City of Sydney resident or you manage a building in the area, print this poster in A4 or A3 size and display it in your apartment building or share it with your neighbours.

Download and print an Ultimo recycling pop-up posterPDF · 1.29 MB · Last modified 16 March 2023

Consider re-use

When you drop off clothes and toys, they are resold and reused. Some electronics are repaired or refurbished, with data wiping, before being resold. All other items you drop off are for recycling only.

If your items are still in working condition, try to find a new home for your household items first. You could give them away to someone who needs it or try advertising online through Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Trading Post, Ebay, Freecycle or Rosella Street. Follow these tips to learn how to sell your stuff online fast.

Find out more about reducing, reusing and repairing.

Where does it all go?

Clothes, linen and toys are donated to charity or reused in communities around the world that need them most.
Polystyrene will be recycled into products such as building insulation and photo frames.
Electronics are sorted and broken down into various materials for recycling, such as metals, plastics, circuit boards, glass and more. Some electronics are repaired or refurbished, with data wiping, before being resold. Batteries can be recycled into new ones. Mobile phone components can be used to make new technology, reducing the need for mining raw materials.
Light bulbs are crushed and the glass wool can become home insulation.
Gas bottles are inspected for reuse. Rejected bottles are shredded and the metal is recycled. The gas is recovered.
X-rays are recycled for their silver, which can be used in jewellery or electrical components. The remaining backing film is recycled into items like shampoo bottles or polyester fleece.
Aluminium coffee pods are separated for their resources. Coffee grounds are composted. The aluminium casings can be infinitely recycled into new products.
Printer cartridge recycling recovers the plastics, metals, ink and toner. Plastics are separated by type before being refined and metals are sent for smelting. They are then sold as raw materials for manufacturing. Ink is refined, mixed and sold as printing ink.
Small metal items are taken to a local recycling facility and sorted into categories such as steel, copper, aluminium, lead, silver and gold. These different metals are shredded and sent to a smelter where they are mixed with other materials to create new products.
Blister packs are shredded, grinded and mechanically separated into their component parts. The plastic is used to make decking products and the foil is turned into aluminium pucks, used by steel manufacturers during the steel-making process.
Food scraps are processed into compost at the Veolia Woodlawn eco precinct near Tarago, NSW. The compost is used to condition the soil on the sheep and cattle farm at the precinct.