Recycle Right. It Matters.

Jun 30, 2023

With the recent changes in the recycling industry came higher standards for recyclables. Things that don’t meet these standards are worth less and harder to recycle.

We used to say that if there was a little bit of food left in a container, it was good enough to recycle. Now containers need to have no food or liquids in them. Give containers a good rinse and let them dry. Or if you can't get them clean, put them in the garbage.

Leftover food can create mold that can spread to other recyclables ruining them. Liquids can ruin the fiber in paper making it harder or unable to be recycled.

Put only recyclables that are accepted in your recycling cart. When you put other things in the cart that “might” be recyclable it causes these problems:

If you are unsure whether an item is recyclable, look it up on the Where Does it Go? tool.

Plastic bags and plastic wrap don't belong in your recycling cart as of January 2020.

Plastic wrap: Examples are what comes on paper towels or toilet paper, bread bags, food storage bags (like Ziplocs), cling wrap, and dry cleaning bags.

Plastic bagged recyclables: Put your stuff loose in the cart. Workers at the recycling facility cannot see what's inside the bags to properly sort them.

Thin plastics, like bags and wrap, get tangled in recycling equipment, and the processing facility has to shut down. Stopping the equipment to remove the plastic slows processing down, driving up costs and is a potential safety risk for workers.