The rest was taken up by refuse better suited to recycle and organics bins.

Council presentations and assets director Craig Lloyd said the results were “fairly disappointing”.

“We collected 250 bins of each type (rubbish, recycling and organics). Those bins were tipped out and hand sorted to identify exactly what was in the bin and where it should have been,” he said.

Mr Lloyd said the figures echoed those supplied by the Victorian government, which found greater Bendigo was in the bottom 50 per cent of local government areas for wast resource recovery.

“Unfortunately many Greater Bendigo residents are still placing recyclables such as paper and cardboard, glass bottles and jars, cans, plastics and organic garden and food waste in their red lid waste bin,” he said.

“Objects that can be recycled are a valuable resource and the cost of sending waste to landfill will continue to rise so the more we recycle and the less we send to landfill the better.”

Mr Lloyd believed many people simply were confused about what they could and could not throw in recycling and organics bins.

“I think there is an element of people using whatever space they have in their bins, but I think that is a small minority,” Mr Lloyd said.

While residents did not know exactly what to throw in the rubbish they had a handle on their other bins.

The average recycling bin contained only 9 per cent contamination. This comprised of 5.3% general waste and 3.7% of materials such as clothing, crockery and scrap metal that cannot be processed through the kerbside recycling collection.

Residents were even better with their organics bins, which contained only two per cent waste or recyclables.

The “Sort it out before you throw it out!” advertising campaign would hit television, radio, print and social media in the next few days.