Most curbside recycling programs accept the same core materials: paper and cardboard, glass bottles and jars, metal cans, and plastics labeled #1, #2, and #5. The national recycling rate in the United States sits around 30 to 32%, which means roughly two-thirds of recyclable material still ends up in landfills. Knowing exactly what goes in the bin, and what stays out, is the single most effective thing you can do to improve that number.
Paper and Cardboard
Paper products are the most commonly accepted recyclable material in the country. Newspapers, magazines, catalogs, office paper, direct mail, paperboard packaging (like cereal boxes), and corrugated cardboard boxes all belong in your bin. Flatten cardboard boxes so they take up less space and don’t block other items from being sorted.
The key rule with paper is that it needs to be clean and dry. Greasy, wet, or moldy cardboard cannot be processed into new material. A pizza box with cheese and grease soaked into the bottom? That goes in the trash or compost, not recycling. About a quarter of all single-stream recycling ends up in a landfill because of contamination like this, so keeping food-soiled paper out of the bin matters more than most people realize. If only the lid of a pizza box is clean, tear it off and recycle that piece alone.
Metals: Aluminum and Steel Cans
Aluminum cans (soda, beer, sparkling water) and tin or steel cans (soup, beans, vegetables) are recyclable through virtually every curbside program. Give them a quick rinse and toss them in. You don’t need to remove labels.
Aluminum is one of the most valuable materials in the recycling stream. Producing aluminum from recycled cans uses 90% less energy than making it from raw ore. Steel recycling saves about 74% of the energy compared to producing it from iron ore. Both metals can be recycled indefinitely without losing quality, which makes them some of the most efficient materials to keep out of the landfill. Aluminum foil and foil pans are also recyclable in many programs, as long as they’re relatively clean.
Glass Bottles and Jars
Glass food and beverage containers of any color, whether clear, green, or brown, are recyclable. Rinse them out and remove metal lids (which can be recycled separately with your metals).
Not all glass is the same, though. Pyrex, oven-safe dishes, window panes, mirrors, light bulbs, frosted glass, and ceramics cannot go in your recycling bin. These items have different chemical compositions and melting points than container glass. Pyrex, for instance, is manufactured to withstand high temperatures, which makes it incompatible with the melting process used to recycle jars and bottles. Tossing a piece of Pyrex into a batch of container glass can ruin the entire load. Drinking glasses and coffee mugs fall into this same category: they look like they belong, but they don’t.
Which Plastics Actually Get Recycled
The numbered triangle on plastic containers is a resin identification code, not a guarantee that the item is recyclable. In practice, only a few of those numbers are widely accepted.
- #1 (PET): Water bottles, soda bottles, and many clear food containers. Picked up by most curbside programs and recycled into polyester fiber, new containers, and other products.
- #2 (HDPE): Milk jugs, detergent bottles, shampoo bottles. Also widely accepted, though some programs only take containers with necks.
- #5 (PP): Yogurt cups, some takeout containers, medicine bottles. Accepted by most curbside programs.
These three, especially #1 and #2, are the plastics that reliably get recycled. The EPA identifies PET and HDPE plastics along with paper and aluminum as the most commonly accepted materials across state recycling programs.
The others are more problematic. #3 (PVC) is rarely recycled in household programs. #4 (LDPE), which includes plastic bags and shrink wrap, is not typically accepted curbside and is a significant source of plastic pollution, though many grocery stores have drop-off bins for plastic bags. #6 (polystyrene, including Styrofoam) is too lightweight to be economical to recycle and is usually rejected. #7 is a catch-all category for specialty plastics that are not typically recycled at all.
Items That Don’t Belong in the Bin
Putting the wrong items in your recycling bin, sometimes called “wishcycling,” causes real problems. Non-recyclable items can jam sorting equipment, contaminate entire batches of otherwise good material, and drive up processing costs. Here are the most common offenders:
- Plastic bags and film: They tangle in sorting machinery and shut down processing lines. Return them to store drop-off bins instead.
- Food-soiled containers: Greasy takeout boxes, unwashed peanut butter jars, and food-caked trays contaminate the paper and cardboard they touch.
- Styrofoam: Packing peanuts, foam takeout containers, and foam cups are almost never accepted curbside.
- Electronics and batteries: Lithium-ion batteries contain flammable electrolyte and can start fires inside recycling trucks and sorting facilities. They need to go to dedicated e-waste collection points.
- Ceramics, Pyrex, and non-container glass: Different melting points make these incompatible with bottle and jar recycling.
Single-use coffee cups are another gray area. The paper cup itself is lined with plastic, making it non-recyclable in most programs. Some facilities can handle the plastic lid if it’s marked #1 or #5, but check your local guidelines.
How Clean Do Recyclables Need to Be
You don’t need to scrub your recyclables until they sparkle. A quick rinse of about six seconds under running water, no soap needed, is enough to remove most food residue. The goal is to prevent organic material from contaminating paper and cardboard in the same bin.
If something has heavy food residue that won’t come off with a quick rinse, like a jar of dried sauce or a heavily greased container, it’s better to throw it in the trash than to risk contaminating the rest of your recycling. One dirty item can soil an entire truckload of otherwise clean material.
Electronics and Batteries Need Special Handling
Old phones, laptops, tablets, and anything with a lithium-ion battery should never go in curbside recycling or regular trash. These batteries contain cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese, and copper, all valuable metals that can be recovered through specialized recycling. More importantly, damaged lithium-ion batteries are a fire hazard. Recycling facilities across the country have reported fires caused by batteries that were tossed into regular bins.
Most municipalities offer e-waste drop-off events or permanent collection sites. Retailers like Best Buy and Staples also accept many types of electronics for recycling. For batteries specifically, look for dedicated battery recycling drop-off points at hardware stores or through programs like Call2Recycle.
Check Your Local Program
Recycling acceptance varies by municipality because it depends on what sorting and processing infrastructure is available nearby. A program in Portland might accept materials that a program in rural Georgia does not. Your city or waste hauler’s website will have the most accurate list for your specific bin. When in doubt about a particular item, leaving it out of the recycling is always better than guessing wrong. One contaminated bin can compromise an entire load of good material at the sorting facility.