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Rubbish rules in strata buildings

For agents & landlords · 6 minute read

Waste management in apartment buildings works differently from a house with its own bins, and the rules catch out new residents, tenants and owners doing renovations alike.

How building waste works

Most buildings have shared bins in a common bin room, serviced either by council collection or a private contractor engaged by the owners corporation. The capacity is calculated for ordinary daily household waste from the number of units — not for clear-outs, renovations or move-outs.

When someone fills the shared bins with a unit's worth of belongings, the bins overflow, the collection is often refused, and the owners corporation pays for an additional service. That cost is spread across every owner's levies.

What by-laws typically cover

• What may and may not be placed in common bins
• A prohibition on leaving items in common areas, corridors, car parks or beside bins
• Hours during which removals and deliveries may occur
• Requirements to book lifts and install protection
• Contractor requirements, often including proof of public liability insurance
• Recycling separation obligations

Breaches can attract notices from the owners corporation and, in some states, orders and penalties through the relevant tribunal.

Bulky items

Furniture, mattresses and whitegoods can't go in common bins, and leaving them in the bin room or car park is the most common complaint building managers deal with. The legitimate options:

• Council hard waste — some councils service strata buildings, but often through the owners corporation rather than individual residents. The building manager will know.
• Building-organised collections — larger buildings sometimes schedule periodic bulky waste collections.
• Private removal — booked by the resident, with lift and dock access arranged in advance.

Renovations

Renovation waste must never go in common bins. Most by-laws require renovation works to be approved in advance, and the approval usually specifies how waste will be removed. Plan the disposal route as part of the application rather than as an afterthought — buildings with no dock and a single small lift can make a bathroom strip-out surprisingly complicated.

For building managers and committees

Where dumping in common areas is a recurring problem, the effective responses tend to be practical rather than punitive: clear signage in the bin room in the languages residents actually use, a welcome sheet for new tenants explaining the rules, a scheduled bulky waste collection a few times a year, and a known contact for residents who need to get rid of something. Most dumping happens because someone didn't know what else to do.

Abandoned goods in common areas

Items left in common property by an unknown resident raise the same questions as goods abandoned in a tenancy — there are processes for dealing with them, and simply disposing of valuable items can create liability. Where the value is more than trivial, take advice on your state's requirements before acting.