Red or yellow? Where your fast food packaging actually belongs

Most Aussies want to do the right thing when it comes to their weekly and fortnightly bin run.

But between shifting rules and the fact every local council seems to have its own guidelines for red landfill, yellow recycle and green garden organics bins, it can be confusing to figure out where everything is meant to go.

One of the most common culprits? Your fast food meals.

Take McDonald's and KFC food packaging, for example. While the fast food giants have switched to cardboard and paper packaging, that doesn't automatically mean it all goes in the yellow recycle bin once the food is eaten.

Some belongs in the red landfill bin, for an important reason: yellow recycle bins can't include any food scraps.

Even oil stains on cardboard and paper fast food packaging voids it for the recycle bin.

Here's the truth about where those fast food wrappers are actually supposed to go.

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Once you have eaten your delicious food, and before your dump any scraps in the packaging into the red bin and the rest of it in the yellow bin, you need to check it.

Two examples we have used are McDonald's fast food packaging from a Ham & Cheese Pocket, and KFC packaging after one of their $10 Mega Meal specials – both of which I have eaten in the past week, and the refuse of which I was left to deal with.

Let's start with my McDonald's Ham & Cheese Pocket wrappers and packaging.

For those who haven't had the pleasure of trying one of these, they are ham and cheese encased in toasted flat bread.

That means melted cheese, which can drip out onto packaging.

Once melted cheese gets on the wrappers, and packaging, it can't go in the recycle bin anymore – it has to go into the landfill bin. Same goes for oil stains.

McDonald's Ham & Cheese Pockets are meticulously made, so there wasn't any dripping cheese or even oil stains on any of my packaging.

The packaging included a paper pocket, a napkin and the outer McDonald's brown bag, all of which I visually inspected to check there was no melted cheese or oil stains.

There wasn't, so after shaking the crumbs out it all went into my yellow recycle bin, except the napkin, which I had used to wipe my hands and mouth.

My KFC Mega Box rubbish was a little more complicated.

As everyone knows, KFC is best eaten directly out of the box.

My partner and I shared the Mega Box and ate it straight out of the packing per KFC etiquette, while standing at our kitchen bench, with our fingers, like ravenous animals. (We were really hungry that day.)

It was delicious, but messy, and eating chicken and chips and potato and gravy and nuggets and tenders was always going to leave some damage.

This KFC meal is served in an outer cardboard box and placed on an inner paper lining. The only food items with separate packaging are the chips and the potato and gravy.

The inner paper lining was a mess, so that went in the red bin along with the chips packet and the potato and gravy plastic container.

I should have been able to place the outer cardboard box in the recycling bin, but it was covered in grease stains.

Several local council websites stated that if food packaging is greasy, it can't go in the recycle bin.

So, sadly, it had to go in the landfill.

The outer KFC brown bag was food- and grease-free and able to be recycled.

I have previously explained the rules of takeaway pizza boxes, which follow the same guidelines as all takeaway food packaging.

Any part of the packaging that has bits of food stuck on it, or is heavily greased, goes in the red landfill bin.

Anything that doesn't can go in the yellow recycling bin.

You can apply these rules for all takeaway food containers, and food packaging.

But once again, it does depend on the specific rubbish rules in your local council area, and your level of commitment.

For example, we all know that tins and milk bottles and drink bottles can be recycled, but do you rinse them out first? Dedicated refuse rule followers do.

While I don't normally do this with milk and drink bottles, I do with tins, especially those that previously contained beans, sardines, and tuna.

And yes, it feels good to recycle as much rubbish as possible, but adding to this motivation is the teeny tiny red bins most families struggle to fit all of their rubbish into.

So the more we can cram into your yellow recycle bins, the better.

If in doubt when it comes to how your bins, you can check your local council website.

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