Most household materials fall into a handful of categories that can be recycled: metals, glass, paper, certain plastics, electronics, and textiles. But “recyclable” doesn’t always mean your local program accepts it. The real answer depends on the material itself and the infrastructure where you live.
Metals: The Most Efficient Material to Recycle
Aluminum and steel are among the easiest and most valuable materials to recycle. Aluminum cans, foil, and pie tins can all go into curbside recycling, and the payoff is enormous: recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy needed to produce it from raw ore, according to the International Aluminium Institute. It also cuts greenhouse gas emissions by a similar percentage. An aluminum can that gets recycled today can be back on a store shelf as a new can in about 60 days.
Steel is just as recyclable and even easier to sort. Because it’s magnetic, recycling facilities pull steel out of mixed waste streams using magnets. Steel cans, tin cans (which are actually steel coated in a thin layer of tin), and other ferrous metals are widely accepted. Both aluminum and steel can be recycled indefinitely without losing quality, which makes metals one of the most straightforward categories.
Glass: Infinitely Recyclable With One Catch
Glass bottles, jars, and jugs are 100% recyclable and can be melted down and reformed endlessly without any loss in quality. Facilities clean the glass, remove labels, and separate pieces by color before crushing and melting them into new containers. That color separation is important: mixing green, brown, and clear glass contaminates the batch and can make it unusable for new containers.
The catch is that not all glass belongs in your recycling bin. Window glass, mirrors, ceramics, and drinking glasses are made with different chemical compositions and melting points. Tossing a broken coffee mug into your glass recycling can ruin an entire load. Stick to food and beverage containers unless your local program specifically says otherwise.
Paper and Cardboard
Paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, and office paper are all recyclable. Paper fibers shorten each time they’re processed, so paper can typically be recycled five to seven times before the fibers become too weak to hold together. After that, the material usually ends up in lower-grade products like egg cartons or insulation.
Contamination is the biggest issue with paper recycling. Grease-soaked pizza boxes, paper towels, and napkins generally can’t be recycled because the oils interfere with the pulping process. Shredded paper is technically recyclable but often too small for sorting equipment to handle, so many programs won’t accept it loose. If yours does, bag it in a clear plastic bag or paper bag first.
Plastics: Not All Numbers Are Equal
This is where recycling gets complicated. The resin identification codes (the numbers 1 through 7 inside the triangle on plastic containers) don’t all mean “recyclable.” In practice, most municipal programs reliably accept only two types.
- #1 (PETE/PET): Water bottles, soda bottles, and many food containers. Widely accepted and commonly recycled into polyester fiber, new bottles, or packaging.
- #2 (HDPE): Milk jugs, detergent bottles, and shampoo containers. The most commonly recycled plastic because it holds up under extreme heat and cold without breaking down.
- #4 (LDPE): Squeezable bottles and some plastic bags. Increasingly accepted but still not universal. Plastic bags should generally go to store drop-off bins rather than curbside bins, where they jam sorting machinery.
- #5 (PP): Yogurt cups, bottle caps, and food containers. Recyclable, but not as widely accepted as #1 or #2.
- #3 (PVC): Pipes, vinyl siding, some cling wraps. One of the least recycled plastics on earth. Less than 1% of PVC is recycled each year. It’s toxic when processed and generally not accepted in curbside programs.
- #6 (PS/Polystyrene): Styrofoam cups, takeout containers, packing peanuts. Technically recyclable but so energy-intensive to process that very few facilities bother.
- #7 (Other): A catch-all category for miscellaneous plastics, including some bioplastics and multi-layer packaging. Nearly impossible to recycle because the composition varies so widely.
If you’re unsure, the safest bet is to recycle #1 and #2, check your local program’s guidelines for #4 and #5, and assume #3, #6, and #7 won’t be accepted.
Electronics and E-Waste
Old phones, laptops, tablets, and other electronics contain small but valuable amounts of gold, silver, palladium, and platinum. Gold is used in bonding wires and integrated circuits, silver in contacts and switches, palladium in capacitors and connectors. Recovering these metals from circuit boards is far more resource-efficient than mining new ore.
Electronics also contain hazardous materials that contaminate soil and water if they end up in a landfill. The key rule: never throw electronics in your regular trash or recycling bin. Instead, use certified electronics recyclers, retailer take-back programs (many big-box stores offer these), or local e-waste collection events. Your municipality’s household hazardous waste program can point you to the nearest option.
Lithium-Ion Batteries Need Special Handling
Batteries deserve their own mention because putting them in the wrong bin can start a fire. Lithium-ion batteries, the kind found in phones, laptops, power tools, and e-bikes, should never go in your trash or curbside recycling. When these batteries get crushed by sorting equipment or compacted in a garbage truck, they can short-circuit and ignite. Fires at recycling and waste facilities linked to improperly discarded batteries have been increasing across the country.
The EPA recommends taking lithium-ion batteries to dedicated recycling locations or household hazardous waste collection points. Before transporting them, tape over the terminals or place each battery in its own plastic bag to prevent contact with other metals. Even “dead” batteries retain enough charge to cause a spark.
Textiles and Clothing
Clothing and fabric can be recycled, though the process is more limited than most people expect. Mechanical recycling works best for single-fiber natural fabrics like 100% cotton. Garments are sorted by color and material, hardware like zippers and buttons is removed, and the fabric is shredded and carded back into fiber. The catch is that this process shortens the fibers significantly, so recycled cotton is typically blended with virgin fiber to maintain quality. Most recycled denim products, for example, contain only 20 to 30% recycled cotton.
Chemical recycling takes a different approach, dissolving textiles down to their molecular building blocks and reassembling them into new yarn. This works well for synthetic fabrics like polyester, which can be chemically recycled back into polyester. Natural fibers like cotton can go through chemical recycling too, but they come out as a different type of fiber rather than new cotton. One commercial example blends recycled cotton pulp with certified wood pulp to produce a new cellulose-based fiber.
For most people, the easiest way to recycle clothing is through donation bins, textile collection programs, or brand take-back programs. Even stained or worn-out clothing that can’t be resold often gets processed into industrial rags or insulation rather than going to a landfill.
What’s Commonly Not Recyclable
Some items look recyclable but cause problems at processing facilities. Plastic bags and film jam sorting machinery at most plants. Food-contaminated containers (greasy pizza boxes, unwashed peanut butter jars) can spoil entire batches of otherwise clean material. Ceramics, heat-resistant glass (like Pyrex), and mirrors have different melting points than container glass and can’t be processed together. Composite materials, like juice boxes made of paper, plastic, and aluminum laminated together, are accepted in some programs but rejected in many others.
Your local program’s website is the most reliable guide. What’s recyclable in one city may not be in the next, and “wishful recycling” (tossing something in the bin hoping it gets recycled) actually increases contamination and processing costs. When in doubt, check first.