How Perth food venues should set up commercial bins now that commingled recycling is bookable alongside general waste. Sizing by venue type, placement, and the contamination traps that cost money.
A Perth food venue can now book more than one weekly bin stream through Bin Hire Australia: general waste and commingled recycling, each in 240L, 660L, and 1100L sizes, plus a greens and garden organics bin for venues with grounds. That is a real change. Until July 2026, Perth hospitality had one option, a general bin that swallowed everything: food scraps, bottles, cardboard, the lot. One honest limit up front: the Perth organics stream takes greens and garden material, not food waste, so kitchen scraps stay in the general bin. Splitting the recycling out is still how venues stop paying general-waste rates to dump bottles and cardboard that never needed to be in that bin.
Booking works the same for every stream: enter your address and venue type, see your exact per-collection price in about two minutes, and a vetted local Perth provider delivers the bins, runs the weekly collections, and invoices you directly.
Food waste is dense and wet, which is why seat count alone misleads. Weight fills a kitchen bin faster than volume does.
Espresso bar or light cafe: a 240L general bin can work if food prep is minimal, but most working cafes do better starting at 660L. Grounds, milk-soaked packaging, and counter food add up fast.
Cafe with a kitchen: 660L general is the standard. Since food scraps stay in the general bin in Perth, size it for the full kitchen load, and add a 240L recycling bin so packaging stops stealing that capacity.
Restaurant with full service: 660L general plus 660L recycling covers most venues. Busy weekends are the sizing test, not the midweek average.
Big venue, function room, or takeaway with heavy trade: step up to 1100L general, or run a pair of 660L bins split between kitchen and front of house on the same weekly stop. The 1100L size is new to Perth and is the best value per litre of any bin.
The Perth bin size guide goes deeper on the sizing logic if your venue does not fit a neat category.
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Get your exact priceCommingled recycling: bottles, cans, rigid plastics, and clean flattened cardboard from deliveries. Bar and bottle-heavy venues often find recycling is half their volume once they look. This is the stream that does the money work for a Perth food venue.
Greens organics: garden and grounds material only, for venues with courtyards, beer gardens or landscaping. It is not a food waste bin, so it earns its keep only where a gardener is filling your general bin with clippings.
General waste: the kitchen's working bin. Food scraps, prep waste and anything wet stay here, since Perth's organics stream does not take food, so size the general bin for the full kitchen load. How Perth's new streams change the maths is covered here.
No WA rule forces any of this separation on businesses today. The case is cost, odour, and space, not compliance.
Placement. Bins belong in a bin bay, rear lane, or enclosed area, not on the footpath and not in customer sightlines. Venues on tight sites, laneway spots in Northbridge or the Fremantle cappuccino strip, should remember a 240L bin fits through a standard doorway; a 660L does not.
Heat. Perth summers punish food waste, and in Perth that waste lives in the general bin. Line it, bag everything wet, keep lids closed, and freeze the worst offenders until the night before collection. A right-sized general bin collected weekly beats an overstuffed one every time.
Public dumping. Venues with street-accessible bins lose capacity to passers-by and neighbouring shops. A lockable bin, a chain and coded padlock option priced as a small add-on in your quote, ends that. More on who needs lockable bins.
Contamination. Keep liquids, cooking oil, and chemicals out of every stream. A contaminated recycling or organics bin can be charged as general waste or left unemptied by the provider, which costs more than the separation ever saved. Ten minutes of staff training and a sign above each bin is the fix.
Every venue's number depends on postcode, streams, and sizes, so averages are useless. Run the quote flow with your address and venue type and the price is exact, locked before you book, with no markup added. Confirm your suburb first on the Perth coverage hub if you are near the metro edges.
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A light espresso bar can run a 240L general bin, but most cafes with any food prep do better on a 660L. Food waste is dense and wet, stays in the general bin in Perth, and fills bins faster than seat count suggests. Adding a 240L recycling bin for packaging usually keeps the general bin from creeping up a size.
Not for food waste. The Perth organics stream that became bookable in July 2026 takes greens and garden material only, so kitchen scraps stay in the general bin. Commingled recycling in 240L, 660L, and 1100L sizes is the new stream that matters for food venues.
It depends on your postcode, streams, and bin sizes, so the honest answer is an exact quote, not an average. Enter your address and venue type in the quote flow and you get your exact per-collection price in about two minutes, locked before you book. The local provider services and invoices you directly.
Size up or add a bin on the same weekly stop. A 660L pair split between kitchen and front of house, or a step up to the new 1100L size, covers busy venues without changing the weekly cycle. Splitting bottles, cans and cardboard into a recycling bin also frees more general capacity than most venues expect.
More resources to help you choose the right bins, schedules, and services.
The jump from 660L to 1100L is about access width, weight and fill rate, not just capacity. When the bigger bin wins, and when two 660s beat one 1100.
Adelaide cafes can book a dedicated organics bin alongside general waste, cardboard and recycling. Why food scraps are the expensive part of your bin, and how to size an organics service that pays for itself.
Most Adelaide offices need less bin than they pay for. How to size by headcount, when a recycling or cardboard bin earns its place, and what to check before booking in a shared building.
View coverage and availability for these cities.
