Most households can recycle paper, cardboard, metal cans, glass bottles, and certain plastics through their curbside program. Beyond those basics, materials like electronics, textiles, and soft plastics are recyclable too, just through separate drop-off programs. The key is knowing which items go where, because putting the wrong thing in your bin can contaminate an entire load.
Paper and Cardboard
Paper is one of the most straightforward materials to recycle. Newspapers, magazines, office paper, junk mail (even envelopes with plastic windows), paperback books, and phone books are all accepted in standard curbside programs. Cardboard should be flattened and stripped of any plastic packing material before going in. Cereal boxes, frozen food boxes, and other thin paperboard containers count too.
A common question is whether you need to remove staples and paper clips. You don’t. Paper mills are equipped to filter those out during processing, though reusing paper clips is a nice habit. Shredded paper is recyclable in many programs, but it should be placed inside a clear bag first so it doesn’t scatter through the sorting facility and contaminate other materials.
The biggest issue with paper recycling is grease and food contamination. Soiled paper towels, napkins, and food-stained containers generally belong in the trash (or compost). Some programs now accept clean pizza boxes, but many paper products used for takeout food have a thin plastic lining that interferes with the pulping process. When in doubt, food-soaked paper goes in the garbage.
Plastics: What the Numbers Actually Mean
That small triangle stamped on the bottom of a plastic container is a resin identification code, not a recycling guarantee. The symbol itself isn’t regulated by any governing body, and it was never patented when it was created in the 1960s. Seeing the triangle doesn’t mean your local facility can process the material.
In practice, two types of plastic are widely and reliably recyclable:
- #1 (PET/PETE): Water bottles, soda bottles, and many food jars. Accepted by most municipal programs.
- #2 (HDPE): Milk jugs, detergent bottles, and shampoo bottles. Also widely accepted.
Even so, only about 29 percent of PET bottles and jars and 29 percent of HDPE natural bottles were actually recycled in 2018, according to EPA data. The overall plastic recycling rate that year was just 8.7 percent. The gap between “recyclable in theory” and “actually recycled” is enormous.
The remaining codes are more hit-or-miss:
- #3 (PVC): Pipes and some packaging. Difficult to recycle and rarely accepted curbside.
- #4 (LDPE): Squeezable bottles and some bags. Can clog sorting machines, so check local rules. Many grocery stores accept LDPE products through store drop-off bins.
- #5 (PP): Yogurt cups, butter tubs, and bottle caps. Increasingly accepted, but not universal.
- #6 (Polystyrene/Styrofoam): Takeout containers and packing peanuts. Generally not accepted in recycling programs.
- #7 (Other): A catch-all for mixed or specialty plastics. Rarely recyclable through standard channels.
A general rule: if the container has a mouth smaller than its base (a bottle or jug shape), it’s almost certainly accepted. Tub-shaped containers marked #5 are increasingly accepted too. Clamshell containers, the clear hinged ones your berries come in, are rejected by many facilities even though they’re often made of recyclable plastic.
Metals
Aluminum and steel are among the most efficiently recycled materials. Aluminum beverage cans, steel food cans, and empty aerosol cans (with lids and tips removed) all go in your curbside bin. Labels can stay on, and you don’t need to scrub them spotless, just rinse out any food residue.
At the sorting facility, magnets pull out steel cans while devices called eddy currents use electromagnetic fields to separate aluminum from other materials. This technology is reliable and fast, which is one reason metal recycling rates are much higher than plastic.
What doesn’t belong: wire hangers, even though they’re metal. They tangle in sorting machines and can cause expensive damage. Scrap metal, pots, pans, and aluminum foil have different rules depending on your area, so check locally. Most recycling centers (as opposed to curbside bins) accept scrap metal separately.
Glass
Glass bottles and jars in any color are recyclable curbside in most programs. Metal lids can stay on, and labels don’t need to be removed. Glass is endlessly recyclable without losing quality, making it one of the best materials from a sustainability standpoint.
The important distinction is between container glass and other types of glass. Window panes, mirrors, light bulbs, and drinking glasses are made from different formulations that melt at different temperatures. When these get mixed into a recycling load, the shards end up embedded in paper and cardboard bales, contaminating them and sometimes causing entire bales to be rejected. Ceramics and heat-resistant glass (like baking dishes) cause the same problem. Only bottles and jars belong in the recycling bin.
Cartons and Mixed Packaging
Juice boxes, milk cartons, soup stock boxes, and other shelf-stable or refrigerated cartons are accepted by a growing number of curbside programs. These containers are made from layers of paper, plastic, and sometimes aluminum, which makes them trickier to process. You should remove and discard any caps and straws before recycling them.
Plastic cups from fast-food restaurants (the clear, hard ones) are accepted in some programs. Colored “party cups” and Styrofoam cups are not.
Items That Need Special Drop-Off
Several common materials are recyclable but will ruin a curbside load if you toss them in your bin.
Plastic bags and film wrap. Grocery bags, bread bags, produce bags, bubble wrap, air pillows, plastic shipping envelopes, and shrink wrap from product packaging should never go in curbside recycling. They wrap around the spinning equipment in sorting facilities and shut down operations. Instead, many grocery stores and county recycling centers collect these materials separately. Resealable bags and dry cleaning bags are accepted at these drop-off points too.
Electronics. Computers, phones, tablets, TVs, and other devices contain valuable metals alongside hazardous materials. The EPA recommends searching through programs like Call2Recycle, Earth911, or manufacturer take-back programs to find drop-off options near you. Batteries should always be removed from devices before recycling, and lithium-ion batteries in particular should never go in household garbage or recycling bins due to fire risk.
Textiles. Clothing, shoes, towels, and fabric scraps are recyclable through donation centers and some county recycling facilities. Even torn or stained fabrics can often be processed into industrial rags or insulation rather than sent to a landfill.
How Sorting Facilities Actually Work
Understanding what happens after your bin gets picked up helps explain why certain items cause problems. At a materials recovery facility, your mixed recycling moves along conveyor belts through a series of mechanical and optical sorting steps. Magnets grab steel. Eddy currents eject aluminum. Screens separate flat paper from rounded containers. Optical sorters using near-infrared technology scan items and identify different polymer types, processing 300 to 500 items per minute.
These systems have blind spots. Solid black plastic containers, for instance, can’t be detected by near-infrared scanners because the system can’t distinguish them from the black conveyor belt surface. That’s one reason black plastic takeout containers rarely get recycled even when they carry a recyclable resin code. Small items that slip through screens, tangled film, and shattered glass fragments all reduce the quality and value of sorted material.
The “Wish-Cycling” Problem
Putting something in the recycling bin because it “seems like it should be recyclable” is known as wish-cycling, and it does more harm than good. When non-recyclable items enter the stream, they contaminate otherwise good material. A single load with too much contamination can be rejected entirely and sent to a landfill.
Common wish-cycled items include wire hangers, window glass, light bulbs, garden hoses, clothing, and anything with food still in it. Even items that are technically recyclable somewhere, like #6 polystyrene, become contaminants if your local facility doesn’t accept them.
The U.S. recycled and composted about 94 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2018, a 32.1 percent rate. Improving that number depends less on people recycling more and more on people recycling correctly. Checking your local program’s specific accepted materials list, usually available on your city or county website, is the single most useful thing you can do.