General Waste (Green or Metal) Bin

What is it?

The general waste service should be used to collect those items that cannot be collected by the other council recycling services. 

Dependant on the property type, the type of bin used for general waste will differ.

• Houses who present their bins to the kerbside will use a green 240 litre wheelie bins
• Flats/tenements may use a mixture of wheelie bins and traditional steel dustbins which are collected by crews from communal areas
• Multi-storey properties use large 1280 litre bins predominantly located within bin stores which are serviced direct by collection crews.

What can go into the general waste bin?

Any items that cannot go into a recycling a blue, purple, brown bin or grey food caddy, can go into a general waste bin.  

Information on what can be collected within the other bins can be found in the related content area.

What should not be placed within the general waste bin?

• Mixed papers - newspapers, magazines, journals, junk mail, brochures, catalogues, directories, yellow pages
• Cardboard - cardboard boxes, card packaging
• Plastic bottles - milk bottles, drinks bottles, sauce bottles, shampoo bottles, cleaning product bottles
• Food and drink cans - steel cans, aluminium cans, food tins, empty aerosol cans
• Wine Bottles
• Beer bottles
• Jam jars
• Coffee jars
• Sauce bottles

What happens to general waste bin contents?

General waste is taken for disposal to a private sector landfill site.

From spring 2017 this waste stream will be treated at the Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre which is currently under construction at the council's Polmadie complex. This facility will have capacity to treat 200,000 tonnes of waste per annum and will divert 80% of the waste delivered to the facility from landfill and recycle 18%.

Further information on the new facility can be found under related documents.

How do I report a damaged general waste bin?

If your general waste (green) bin has been damaged you can use our online form.