Where do I take paint, gas bottles, batteries and chemicals in Sydney?
A CleanOut event is a free drive-through day on set dates; a Community Recycling Centre is a permanent drop-off open all year. Here is what each takes, and where batteries, gas bottles and paint go.
- A Community Recycling Centre or service named for it
- Hosts a CleanOut event, October to December 2026
A dot marks a council whose page names a Community Recycling Centre or service; a ring marks a council that hosts a CleanOut event on the EPA’s Sydney schedule for the rest of 2026.
General information only. The NSW EPA’s Find Community Recycling Centres and Household Chemical CleanOut events page lists the current dates and centres; check it before you load the car.
Two ways in
A Household Chemical CleanOut event is the NSW EPA’s mobile collection service: free drive-through days held across NSW on set dates. An event in the Sydney, Illawarra or Hunter region is open to residents from anywhere in NSW unless the host says otherwise, and business or commercial quantities are not accepted. The limits are the ones the EPA prints: at most 20 litres or 20 kilograms of each type of waste, and paint up to 100 litres in 20 litre containers at certain events. For site safety reasons the EPA asks you to stay in your vehicle, and staff collect the containers, so nothing you carry in comes back.
A Community Recycling Centre is the other half of the system: a permanent drop-off for the common household problem wastes that kerbside bins cannot take, open year round and free for NSW householders. The EPA funds new and enhanced centres with local councils, and there are now more than 100 of them in the state. Paint, gas bottles, batteries, oils, fluorescent lights, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are the free centre items the EPA lists. The accepted quantity is a household amount, with 20 litres or 20 kilograms as the guide limit for each waste type, and businesses are not eligible to use the service.
| Household Chemical CleanOut | Community Recycling Centre | |
|---|---|---|
| What it takes | A mobile collection service for household chemicals, including cleaners, pool and hobby chemicals, pesticides, paints, oils, gas bottles, batteries and fluorescent globes. | A permanent drop-off for problem waste: paint, gas bottles, batteries, oils, fluorescent lights, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, plus products with embedded batteries at the battery sites. |
| Limits | At most 20 litres or 20 kilograms of each type of waste, except paint, where up to 100 litres in 20 litre containers is accepted at certain events. | Household quantities only: 20 litres or 20 kilograms is the guide limit for each waste type. |
| Who may use it | Free, drive-through, and open to anyone who lives in NSW; events in Sydney, the Illawarra and the Hunter are open to residents from anywhere in NSW unless stated. No business or commercial quantities. | Most centres are open to all NSW residents: the EPA names Leichhardt and Cumberland as the two exceptions. Businesses are not eligible. |
| When and where | On set dates at sites that rotate: drop-off runs from 9am to 3:30pm on the date listed against each host council. | All year round, and one centre may take items the next one does not, so the EPA says to contact the centre to check what it accepts and whether a charge applies. |
The CleanOut dates left in 2026
The EPA’s Sydney schedule for July to December 2026 lists these events, and the City of Sydney’s own page adds one more at its depot. Drop-off runs from 9am to 3:30pm on the dates listed, and the host council is named for each.
- Saturday 17 October 2026 at Alexandra Canal Depot, 67C Bourke Road, Alexandria, hosted by the City of Sydney, whose page says everyone is welcome even from outside the area.
- Sunday 1 November 2026 at Sydney Motorsport Park, Ferrers Road, Eastern Creek, hosted by Blacktown.
- Sunday 8 November 2026 at Heffron Park, Fitzgerald Avenue car park, Maroubra, hosted by Randwick.
- Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November 2026 at St Ives Showground, Mona Vale Road, St Ives, hosted by Ku-ring-gai.
- Saturday 28 November 2026 at the Inner West Council Works Depot, reached via Bolton Street in St Peters, hosted by Inner West.
- Sunday 29 November 2026 at Strathfield Council Depot, 1 Weerona Road, Strathfield, hosted by Strathfield.
- Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 December 2026 at Castle Hill Showground, Showground Road, Castle Hill, hosted by The Hills.
Two centres for locals only
Most Community Recycling Centres take problem waste from any NSW household, and the EPA names two exceptions: Leichhardt and Cumberland. Cumberland’s is a mobile service, and the EPA’s Sydney brochure limits it to residents of Cumberland and Blacktown City councils, booked through problemwaste.com.au. The centres behind the map’s dots include several with their own pages: Hornsby’s at Thornleigh, which takes non-commercial quantities of recyclables free; Canada Bay’s at 15-17 Regatta Road, Five Dock, free with no booking needed; North Sydney’s at 8 Waltham Street, Artarmon, where e-waste is limited to 20 kilograms and motor oil to 20 litres per car per day; Penrith’s at Gate 3, 96 Dunheved Circuit, St Marys, which no longer opens on Saturdays; Camden’s, which takes household problem waste free; Campbelltown’s; Liverpool’s, open 7am to 3pm Monday to Saturday; Hawkesbury’s at 1 The Driftway, South Windsor, the council’s Waste Management Facility; the Inner West drop-offs for items that cannot go in the household bins; Blue Mountains’ at Blaxland; and Randwick’s. Three of them do not take chemicals: Canada Bay, Penrith and Campbelltown each say solvents, poisons and pool chemicals belong at a CleanOut event instead. The EPA lists the centres that also take products with embedded batteries, and they include Blue Mountains at Blaxland, Campbelltown, Hawkesbury, Inner West at Leichhardt, Liverpool, the Northern Sydney centre and Randwick’s.
Batteries
The NSW EPA’s Never bin a battery page says even a single battery can spark a fire when it goes in a bin. Its page on embedded batteries explains why: batteries should never be put in a kerbside bin of any lid colour, because they hold substances that can harm people and the environment, and they can catch fire in collection trucks and at waste facilities. Vapes are the sharpest case: the EPA says they hold a heating element and a lithium battery that can readily ignite during collection or processing, it collects them at CleanOut events, and they should never be placed in a kerbside bin.
Where a battery goes depends on what type it is, and the EPA sets out three bands. Loose batteries, the ones designed to be put into and taken out of a product, are the AA, AAA, C, D and button cells; those under 5 kilograms fall under the national battery stewardship scheme, B-cycle, and can be dropped at many supermarkets, hardware stores and electronics shops. Larger removable batteries of 5 to 20 kilograms, such as e-bike and e-scooter batteries and the batteries from large power tools, can be taken free to a Community Recycling Centre or a CleanOut event. Embedded batteries cannot be taken out at all: they are built into electric toothbrushes, Bluetooth speakers, smart watches, power banks, vacuums, toys and vapes, and the EPA works with local councils to take products with an embedded battery at chosen Community Recycling Centres, 34 of them so far. Car batteries go to an automotive shop, a battery shop, a centre or a CleanOut event. Phone batteries are collected by MobileMuster, a product stewardship program run by the telecommunications industry and accredited by the federal government.
A battery sealed inside a device that is being thrown out is part of the device’s own route, which the guide on old phones, televisions and computers works through.
Gas bottles
Gas bottles and cylinders are a CleanOut item and a centre item, and they are worth taking in: the EPA says undamaged bottles are retested, restamped and put back into the hire industry, with the residual gas captured for reuse. A centre that turns away solvents and pool chemicals still takes cylinders, because gas bottles are on the free list of centre items.
Paint
Paint carries the one limit that is more generous than the rest: up to 100 litres in 20 litre containers at certain CleanOut events, with the EPA asking households to check the paint quantity limit with the council hosting the event. The Sydney brochure prints it as paint up to 100 litres in 20 litre containers, and other waste up to 20 litres or 20 kilograms per waste type. What becomes of it: the EPA says the paint is combined with solvents from other collected waste and burned in cement kilns in place of fuel, and the metal tins are recycled.
Not on this page: asbestos
Nothing on this page takes asbestos, and no kerbside bin or clean-up does either. Asbestos waste can only go to a landfill licensed to accept it. The next section says who may remove it from a home, and when a licence is needed. The Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency’s page for householders sets out the precautions, and the asbestos guide carries the Sydney landfills licensed to take it.
Handling asbestos safely
Asbestos fibres are dangerous when the material is damaged or worked on, and the EPA says most asbestos-containing material in a home is safe while it is in good repair and nothing is likely to damage or disturb it. Unlicensed removal is legal in your own home, but only for non-friable material under 10 square metres: the state government says any friable material, and anything larger, needs a licensed removalist. A home owner who does that small job must follow the same strict precautions as a licensed removalist, from the start of the job to the end. The advice is still not to rely on that permission: the Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency says it is not recommended that you handle or remove asbestos yourself, and the NSW Government’s asbestos site strongly recommends a licensed asbestos assessor and removalist, who can identify, remove and dispose of it safely. The NSW EPA sets the same limits for a contractor. If a material might contain asbestos, treat it like it is, and never clean it with high-pressure water or any abrasive process such as scrubbing, sanding or grinding: the national agency says work that is likely to disturb or damage the asbestos should go to professional help instead. Queensland’s asbestos site says not to saw, sand, scrape or drill holes in asbestos materials. The asbestos guide carries the whole route, from wrapping the load to the disposal receipt.