It is a fair question and a common one: does any of this actually get recycled, or does it all end up in the same hole? For the material you sort properly the honest answer is that most of it genuinely is recovered, and the reason turns entirely on how cleanly it arrives. Here is what happens to your recycling and green waste after the gate, and why the sorting you do at home decides the outcome.
Where a sorted load actually goes
A modern transfer station is not a hole in the ground, it is a sorting yard. Loads are directed to separate bays by material, and each bay feeds a different recovery path. Facilities built around this idea are usually called resource recovery centres for exactly that reason. The Willawong Resource Recovery Centre in Brisbane and the Kimbriki Resource Recovery Centre on Sydney's northern beaches both split general waste, commingled recycling and green waste at the gate so each stream can go to the right processor rather than to landfill.
What happens to each stream
Metals are the star. Steel and aluminium are endlessly recyclable and valuable enough that facilities actively want them, which is why scrap metal is almost always free to drop. It is baled, sold and melted into new product. Cardboard and paper are baled and pulped back into new fibre. Glass and rigid plastics from commingled recycling go to a materials recovery facility where they are separated by machine and buyer. E-waste is dismantled so the metals, glass and circuitry can be recovered, which is part of why it is now banned from landfill in several states. A site like the Summerhill Waste Management Centre in Newcastle runs general waste, recycling, scrap metal, e-waste and green waste as distinct streams for precisely this reason.
Green waste becomes soil, not landfill
Garden organics are one of the best recovery stories going. Branches, prunings, grass and leaves are shredded and composted into mulch and soil conditioner that goes back onto gardens, farms and landscaping projects. That is why so many facilities take domestic green waste free or cheap: it has a real end market and it keeps a heavy, wet, methane-producing stream out of landfill. The Frankston Regional Recycling and Recovery Centre and the South Melbourne Resource Recovery Centre both run dedicated green waste streams. There is more on timing your garden loads in the seasonal green waste guide.
The problem streams
Not everything has a clean recovery path, and it is worth being honest about which. Soft plastics, the scrunchable bags and wrappers, are notoriously hard to recycle at scale and are not accepted in most kerbside recycling, which is why some facilities run a separate drop-off for them and why keeping them out of your commingled load matters. Polystyrene, mixed and dirty plastics and textiles sit in a similar grey zone, recoverable at some sites and not others. This is exactly why the accepted list differs facility to facility: a site only advertises a stream it has a real buyer or processor for. Mattresses and tyres are the opposite story, genuinely recoverable but charged, because the per-item fee is what funds pulling the steel, foam and rubber back out.
Why sorting is the whole game
Contamination is what turns a recoverable load into landfill. One wrong item can down-grade a whole stream: a greasy pizza box in the cardboard, a plastic bag in the green waste, a gas bottle hidden in general rubbish. When a recovery load arrives too contaminated to clean up economically, it gets redirected to landfill, and the effort everyone upstream put in is wasted. This is the real reason facilities ask you to separate at the gate and refuse certain items. It is not bureaucracy, it is the difference between the load being recovered and the load being buried.
Wishcycling does more harm than good
There is a well meant habit of tossing a doubtful item in the recycling and hoping it counts, and it backfires. A single wrong item, a garden hose, a plastic bag full of bottles, a nappy, can jam sorting machinery or contaminate the bale around it, and the cost of that lands on the whole load. The honest approach is the opposite of hopeful: if you are not sure a facility takes something, check its accepted list rather than guessing, and if it is not listed, keep it out and deal with it as general waste or at a dedicated drop-off. Doing less but doing it cleanly recovers more than doing more and contaminating the stream.
How to make your load count
Keep the streams apart on the trailer so you can tip each into the right bay: metal, cardboard, green waste and e-waste separate from the general remainder. Keep the obvious contaminants out, no bags in the green waste, no liquids or chemicals in general rubbish, no e-waste or batteries buried in the pile. Read the accepted list on the facility page before you go, because each site recovers a slightly different set of streams. Browse resource recovery centres near you from the state facilities pages and open the one you plan to use to see exactly what it takes.