How to skip the too-hard basket and recycle Australia’s most challenging household items

Clothing is a huge landfill contributor – 100,000 tonnes of clothing go straight to the tip each year. Photograph: BluIz60/Alamy

When it comes time to ditch items that can’t go in the council kerbside recycling bin – an old mattress, say, or your running shoes – don’t throw them in the too-hard basket.

Only 42.1% of Australian household waste is recycled, according to the latest national waste report, yet many binned things could be sent to alternative recycling systems.