Central City Waste Laws

Bins must be stored within your premises. Unless you have applied for permission from Council to store in one of our allocated laneways you must not permanently store your bins in a street, in a laneway, on a footpath or at an approved collection site outside of collection hours.

Bins may only be presented to the street for collection. Please take note of the regulations below for when you can place your bins out and when they must be taken back inside your property. 

Overnight collections:

• your bins can be placed out for collection from 6pm onwards
• your bins must be returned inside by no later than 10am the following morning.

Daytime collections:

• bins can be brought out for collection during business hours (7am – 7pm) but must be returned inside within 3 hours of collection.

Please note: If your collection has been missed, you must return your full bin inside and contact your waste provider to arrange another collection. Penalties apply for leaving your bins out during the day.

Most businesses will find room to store their bins off the street. For example, you may be able to use an existing cupboard or storage area. If you really have no room, you may be able to negotiate an arrangement with a neighbouring business to store your bins on their property.

If you cannot store your bins off the street, please contact us or call the Waste Standards Team on 03 9658 9658 to discuss your situation.

If City of Melbourne gives you permission to store a bin on public land, a number of additional requirements must be met. This includes storing the bin in a designated prescribed area, and having each bin locked, sealed, cleaned and regularly emptied, which may increase the cost of your waste service. Bins containing food waste must be emptied daily.

Each bin in the central city must be labelled with your business name and address. To get a new or replacement City of Melbourne bin label, contact us.

All external surfaces of waste bins need to be clean and free of visible food matter and other debris. We recommend you engage a bin cleaning company that operates in the city. If you choose to wash your own bins, we encourage you to reuse old washing up or mop water. All wash water must then be poured down your internal sink or toilet.

It is an offence to pour soapy or contaminated water into a street, a lane or down a drain.