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How do you dispose of e-waste in Australia?

The direct answer

Televisions, computers and their accessories are free to recycle at drop-off points across Australia under the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, and Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia each ban e-waste streams from landfill in their own terms. A skip bin is the wrong first stop for screens: on this site TVs and screens are routed to manual confirmation rather than quoted automatically, and anything electrical must be declared at booking.

What counts as e-waste

Victoria's definition is the cleanest in the country: e-waste is any item with a plug, battery or power cord — televisions, computers, mobile phones, battery-operated toys, kitchen appliances and white goods included (vic.gov.au, read 3 September 2026). Fridges, freezers and air conditioners are e-waste with an extra rule of their own — refrigerant — and get their own page: how to dispose of a fridge.

The free national scheme for TVs and computers

The National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS) has run since 2011 and gives Australian households and small businesses free access to industry-funded collection and recycling for televisions and computers, including printers, computer parts and peripherals. It operates under the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 (dcceew.gov.au, page last updated 29 August 2025, read 3 September 2026). Planet Ark's RecyclingNearYou — which notes that the importers and manufacturers of the equipment pay for the end-of-life recycling — lists the scheme's drop-off points by suburb, and its televisions and computers pages list what is taken: monitors, laptops, keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, webcams, cables, chargers, hard drives and motherboards.

Drop-off is typically at council facilities. Canberra is a concrete example: the ACT's own Recyclopaedia says televisions, computers and accessories must not go in household bins and may be dropped off free under the scheme at the Mugga Lane and Mitchell Resource Management Centres (cityservices.act.gov.au, read 3 September 2026). Many councils also collect e-waste as a separate stream in their booked clean-ups — our council clean-up vs skip bin page holds the per-council rules we have verified, and which council covers my postcode maps you to yours.

Which states ban e-waste from landfill

We state a ban only where we have read it on that government's own page:

  • Victoria — since 2019 it has been illegal to put e-waste in household rubbish or landfill (vic.gov.au, read 3 September 2026).
  • South Australia — the EPA's landfill ban list includes televisions, computers and white goods, and any other electrical or electronic equipment (epa.sa.gov.au, read 3 September 2026).
  • Western Australia — a regulated e-waste landfill ban has applied since 1 July 2024, covering screens, IT and telecommunications equipment, lighting, large appliances, batteries and temperature-exchange equipment. It binds waste operators, businesses and landfill operators; households are not obligated but are encouraged to use drop-off points, and the initial phase excludes small appliances like toasters and e-cigarettes (wa.gov.au, page last updated 1 July 2026, read 3 September 2026).
  • ACT — not framed as a landfill ban, but the territory's Recyclopaedia is explicit that televisions, computers and accessories must not go in household bins (read 3 September 2026).
  • NSW, Queensland, Tasmania, Northern Territory — we have not verified an equivalent statewide ban on those governments' own pages, so this page makes no claim about them. Councils in every state run their own e-waste programs; your council's website is the authority.

Where a skip bin fits — and where it does not

A skip bin is for the volume of a job, not for screens. Our waste categories page states how this site actually handles e-waste: TVs and screens are not priced automatically at all — they “are routed to manual confirmation rather than quoted”, and “the quote for your postcode shows what applies where you are”. Clause 12.1 of our customer terms adds two hard lines: “batteries or regulated electrical waste where prohibited by local disposal rules” must not go in the bin, and restricted items are excluded “unless declared and accepted”.

So the honest sequence is: screens, computers and their accessories go free via the NTCRS; batteries never go in a skip undeclared; anything else electrical gets named at booking so the confirmation for your postcode can say yes or no. The skip earns its keep on everything around the e-waste — the furniture, junk and renovation material of the same clean-out. Skip bin prices by postcode shows what that costs in your area, and if the bin needs to sit on the street, skip bin permit cost by council holds each council's own permit figures.