We all want to do the right thing, and that includes separating our recycling. But getting over-enthusiastic about what we chuck in the yellow-lidded bin can cause more harm than good, by contaminating the recyclables with plain old rubbish or jamming up the sorting machinery.

Here are some tips for making your recycling count:

If it’s smaller than a tennis ball, bundle it up

Anything under 5cm diameter can fall through the sorting machinery. To keep it all together, bundle up the little bits - remembering to keep like substances together.

From there teel, aluminium, paper, cardboard and plastic are sold to companies in Australia for processing, and from there on-sold (within Australia or overseas) to be made into new products.

Glass is sorted, crushed, and used in local council works projects, including a protective layer over landfill linings which would otherwise have otherwise been made from sand harvested from the local area.