Recycling at home, explained

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Reduce and reuse first

EPA says products should only be recycled if they cannot be reduced or reused. Its waste management hierarchy puts source reduction and reuse ahead of recycling.

Your local program decides

EPA gives general answers but says your local program may have different rules. Check with your local recycling program to learn what it accepts.

Paper and cardboard

EPA says pizza boxes can be recycled even if they have grease in them, once you remove any food scraps and flatten the box. It says to flatten boxes before placing them in the bin.

Plastics

EPA says some types of plastics are not accepted in community recycling programs. It says plastic bags, wraps, and films cannot go in your household recycling bin, and that retail and grocery stores often accept them. It says items with food debris cannot be recycled.

Glass and aluminum

EPA says broken glass should not go into the recycling bin, because glass shards can harm workers and damage equipment. It says that, generally, aluminum cans should not be crushed before recycling, because in areas with single-stream recycling, crushed cans are harder to detect when they are sorted. It says crushing cans is not an issue in areas with multi-stream recycling.

Spatula-clean

For food containers, EPA says to rinse or scrape any food residue off, and that "spatula-clean" is clean enough to recycle.

Sources: EPA, How Do I Recycle Common Recyclables; EPA, Recycling Basics and Benefits; EPA, Frequently Asked Questions about Plastic Recycling and Composting.

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