- Home
- Companies
- City of Melbourne
- Services
- Food and Other Waste Types Services
Food and Other Waste Types Services
As a business owner or operator, you are responsible for arranging the proper disposal of waste generated by your business. Learn about your responsbilities and ways to manage different types of waste, including food waste, cigarette butts, oils and liquids, and hazardous waste.
Consider donating surplus food to organisations such as FareShare, that collect quality food that would otherwise be wasted from Melbourne businesses and use it to prepare nutritious meals for the hungry and homeless.
City of Melbourne`s Community Food Guide provides a list of food rescue organisations that you can contact to arrange a food donation.
Food waste recovery or recyclingWe encourage cafes, restaurants and other food businesses to recycle food waste. Recycled food organics are composted to produce a valuable soil conditioner product to improve the health and productivity of our soils.
Commercial recycling organisations, such as KS Environmental, provide a recycling collection service for food waste. To find a food waste recycling service provider, visit Planet Ark`s Business Recycling website.
Businesses in Degraves Street or Centre Place can recycle food waste at the Degraves Street Recycling Facility.
Cigarette butts make up about one third of the one billion items of litter entering Melbourne’s waterways each year and can take up to 15 years to break down.
For more information on your responsibilities in managing cigarette butt litter around your business, see Cigarette butt disposal.
Empty milk crates, bread crates, oil drums, beer barrels and kegs left in the street around your business are unattractive and can cause accidents.
We do not collect bread, milk or chicken crates, as they remain the property of the original producer. You must make arrangements with your suppliers for regular collection of crates.
Crates must remain on the business premises. Crates must be stored within the premises until they are collected.
Any discharge from a business, whether it’s water, grease, oil, or other liquid waste, must not be placed in a bin or poured down the drain.
This includes if it’s dumped by a person or is flowing directly out of a pipe. As a business, it’s your responsibility to arrange the proper collection or disposal of liquid waste. It then needs to be stored in the correct type of container until the collection date.
A fine of $2000 applies for non-compliance.
Visit Business Recycling to find an appropriate oil recycling facility or company.
Many businesses, such as hairdressers, mechanics and medical centres, regularly generate hazardous waste such as:
- kitchen chemicals
- bathroom cleaners and solvents
- workshop, garden and commercial and industrial chemicals
- pharmaceuticals, poisons and motor fluids.
All hazardous waste must be disposed of according to the Victorian Environment Protection Act and any other relevant laws and guidelines.
As a business it is your responsibility to arrange a commercial waste collection service. A fine of $2000 applies for non-compliance.
We help businesses to safely manage and dispose of syringe-related waste by providing and installing up to three syringe disposal bins free of charge to eligible businesses in the municipality. Each bin supplied and installed is valued at approximately $120.
Syringe bins also improve occupational health and safety and reduce risk and exposure to public liability.
Eligible businesses are those that:
- have toilets or similar facilities frequented by the public such as restaurants, cafés, car parks, licensed venues, shopping malls, cinemas, churches, community centres, tourist sites, train/bus stations, universities, gyms
- do not currently have syringe bins installed
- agree to service the bins at their own cost for at least one year.
Contact City of Melbourne to register your interest.
Use our online form below to report illegally dumped commercial waste including bags of rubbish, boxes, milk crates or cigarette butts.
You can also report illegally discharged liquid from a business or premises, such as leaking, liquid from a pipe, or pouring liquid into a public drain. This can include grease, sewerage, cooking oil, chemicals or excess water.