If you are booking a City of Melbourne hard rubbish collection, there is one number worth knowing before anything else: you get one cubic metre, once per financial year, per address. That is it. It is the tightest hard waste allowance of any inner-Melbourne council, and it changes how you plan a clear-out in the CBD, Southbank, Carlton or East Melbourne. Here are the five facts that decide how your booking goes.
Fact 1: One cubic metre, once a financial year
The council is blunt about it. Its hard waste page offers residents one free collection of one cubic metre per financial year, and a cubic metre means exactly that, a metre wide by a metre deep by a metre high. Picture a large fridge and you are close. Commercial and retail addresses get nothing at all.
Put that next to the neighbours and it stands out. Boroondara gives two collections a year, Yarra gives two as well, Glen Eira gives three, and Port Phillip gives four to a house. City of Melbourne gives one, and caps the volume on top. So the planning question is not really when to book. It is what deserves the one metre you get.
Bookings are essential, and dates open two months ahead. If you are clearing a whole flat or a terrace after a renovation, assume from the start that the free collection covers part of the job, not all of it.
Fact 2: A house books it directly, a high-rise goes through the building manager
If you are in a house or a terrace in Carlton or East Melbourne, this part is simple. You go to the council booking portal, pick a date, and put your items out the day before. The form asks which of four categories you are putting out, where on the property the pile will sit, and your preferred date.
If you live in a high rise, the council says you can ask your building manager to book a collection for you. That is the practical route in Southbank and across the CBD, because there is rarely a kerb that belongs to your apartment and the truck needs somewhere it can legally reach. Most towers nominate a loading dock or a bin store, and it needs agreeing in advance rather than on the morning. This is one of several rules an apartment building sets around waste, so your building manager is the first call, not the council.
One rule catches both housing types. Items go out the day before collection, on the kerbside or somewhere the truck can reach, and under no circumstances will the crew come inside your property boundary to get them.
Fact 3: E-waste is collected, and the accepted list is broader than most people expect
This is the one people get wrong, and it costs them part of their single yearly collection. Because e-waste has been banned from landfill and general rubbish bins since 2019, plenty of guides assume it is banned from hard waste too. In the City of Melbourne it is not. The council lists e-waste of all sizes and types as collected, and the booking form has a category for it alongside white goods, furniture and mattresses.
The rest of the accepted list is generous for its size: scrap metal and other waste metal products including barbecues, pottery and chinaware, securely wrapped and labelled sheet glass, mattresses, small rugs up to 1.5 metres rolled and tied, household appliances such as fridges, dishwashers, stoves and washing machines with the doors removed, air conditioners and mowers, household furniture, tools, toys, bicycles and sporting gear, timber under a metre in lengths of up to ten pieces, and hot water units.
Two conditions attach. Separate the e-waste from everything else rather than burying it in the pile, and take lithium batteries out of the items before they go out. If your load is mostly televisions and computers and you would rather keep your one collection for the bulky things, there are free e-waste drop-off points around Melbourne that will take them any time.
Fact 4: What they will not take
The exclusion list is where a booking gets refused on the day. Nothing over 30 kilograms a piece. No trade waste. No waste from building, renovation or demolition, and the council names toilet bowls and carpet specifically, which surprises people mid-bathroom-reno. No bricks, concrete, rubble, soil or stones. No fencing. No liquids, so no paint, chemicals or motor oil. No garden waste, which has its own free booking. No polystyrene, no car bodies, no tyres, no unwrapped broken glass, and no hazardous material including asbestos.
Worth untangling one common mix-up: scrap iron, steel and old tins are accepted, so a stack of metal is fine. It is whole car bodies and tyres that are out, not every part off a car. If a renovation is what generated the pile, though, that whole load is outside the service and always was.
Mixing an excluded item through an otherwise fine pile is the fastest way to lose the collection, because the crew can decline the lot. Sort it the night before, not on the morning.
Fact 5: Over the limit, Dynon Road is the paid fallback
When the one cubic metre runs out, or the collection date is too far away, the council points residents to the Dynon Road Waste and Recycling Centre at 437 Dynon Road, West Melbourne, which Cleanaway operates on the council’s behalf. It is open to residents 9am to 3pm, seven days, and no booking is needed.
It is not free, and the fees are worth knowing before you load the car rather than after. At the time of writing the council lists roughly $91 for a car boot load, $145 for a station wagon, $215 for a level ute and $285 heaped, $185 for a van, and $88 for each mattress. Check the council page for current rates, because tip fees have been climbing across Melbourne. A single mattress is charged on its own wherever you take it, which is why they so often end up dumped.
Dynon Road has its own exclusions too, and they largely mirror the kerbside ones: no paints or solvents, no building materials, no tyres or car bodies, no hazardous waste, no industrial waste. So a renovation load is not solved by driving it there either.
What it is not is a reason to leave things on a footpath. EPA Victoria and councils run a joint illegal waste dumping taskforce, and dumped loads get investigated and fined. If the pile is bigger than your allowance, book it in, drive it in, or get someone to take it properly.
Key takeaways
One cubic metre, once a financial year, and commercial addresses are not eligible. A house or terrace books directly and puts the pile out the day before. A high-rise asks the building manager, because the truck needs somewhere it can legally reach. E-waste is accepted, so long as it is separated and the lithium batteries are out. Renovation waste, rubble, tyres and anything over 30 kilograms are not, at the kerb or at Dynon Road. And when one metre is not enough, that is the point at which a paid option, whether the tip or a removal service, does the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
One cubic metre, once per financial year, per residential address. A cubic metre is a metre in each direction, which is roughly the footprint of a large fridge, so it goes quickly once a mattress and a couch are in it. Commercial and retail addresses are not entitled to the service at all. Bookings are essential and dates are released two months in advance, so if you have a settlement or a lease end in mind, get the date locked in early. If your clear-out is clearly bigger than one metre, plan the free collection around the bulkiest items and sort a paid option for the rest rather than hoping the crew will take extra on the day.
The council’s guidance is that high-rise residents can ask their building manager to book a collection for them, and in practice that is the route that works. A tower rarely has a kerb that belongs to any one apartment, and the crew will not enter the building or your property boundary to collect. So the collection point, usually a loading dock or bin store, has to be agreed with the building manager or owners corporation before a date is locked in. Ring them first. If your building coordinates a single collection for the whole block, your items may need to go out on their schedule rather than one you choose.
Yes. The council lists e-waste of all sizes and types among the items it will collect, and the booking form has a dedicated category covering televisions, computers, printers and small appliances. This surprises people, because e-waste has been banned from landfill and from your general rubbish bin since 2019, and that ban is often misread as a ban on hard waste too. Two conditions apply: keep the e-waste separated from the rest of the pile, and remove lithium batteries before collection day. If e-waste would eat most of your one cubic metre, free drop-off points around Melbourne will take it separately and leave your allowance for the bulky things.
Then hard rubbish is not the answer, and neither is the tip run you were planning. The council excludes waste resulting from building, renovation or demolition, and it names toilet bowls and carpet on that list. Bricks, concrete, rubble, soil and stones are out as well, and Dynon Road refuses building materials too. Renovation waste needs a private service that is set up to take it, which is a different job from a kerbside collection. The same goes for anything over 30 kilograms a piece, tyres, car bodies, paint and chemicals, and anything hazardous such as asbestos, which needs a licensed removalist and never goes to a kerb.
You cannot simply book a second free collection, because the entitlement is one per financial year. The council’s own fallback is the Dynon Road Waste and Recycling Centre in West Melbourne, open to residents 9am to 3pm seven days with no booking, where fees are charged by load size, around $91 for a car boot and $145 for a station wagon at the time of writing, plus $88 for each mattress. Check the council page for current rates. If the load is more than you want to sort, shift and drive, or it has to come out of a high-rise, give the team at It’s Done a call on (03) 9820 1927 and we will quote it for free.
