Why nobody can tell you your rules
Recycling in the United States is a municipal service, not a national one. A city, a county or a private hauler under contract decides what goes in the bin, and that decision follows from two practical constraints: what the material recovery facility they send to is physically equipped to sort, and whether there is a buyer for the sorted output at a price that covers the handling.
Both constraints move. Facilities are upgraded and downgraded. Contracts change hands. Commodity markets for recovered paper, glass cullet and mixed plastics rise and collapse, and when the price for a material goes negative, programs quietly stop accepting it. Glass is the clearest example: it is genuinely and infinitely recyclable, but it is heavy to haul, it shatters in a single-stream truck and contaminates the paper stream with fragments, and processing it costs more than the cullet sells for in many regions. Plenty of programs that took glass ten years ago now direct it to a drop-off site or to the trash.
So the only authority on what belongs in your bin is your city or hauler's own current published list. Not this page, not a guide written for somewhere else, and not what you did at your last address. Search your city or county name with recycling and read the list they actually publish, because programs change their rules more often than they announce it, and a habit formed three years ago may now be contamination.
The number in the triangle is not a promise
The chasing-arrows triangle stamped into plastic with a number from 1 to 7 inside is a resin identification code. It was created to identify the plastic type for sorting, and it says nothing about whether the item is accepted anywhere, or whether it will actually be recycled if it is. The symbol looks like a recycling logo, which is a design decision that has confused consumers for decades.
| Code | Plastic | Honest status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — PET | Water and soda bottles, some clamshells | Widely accepted in bottle form and genuinely has markets. Clamshells and thermoformed trays are a different product and are often rejected even though the number matches. |
| 2 — HDPE | Milk jugs, detergent bottles | The other resin with real, established demand. Widely accepted. |
| 3 — PVC | Pipe, some packaging, blister packs | Essentially never accepted curbside |
| 4 — LDPE | Film, bags, squeeze bottles | Film almost never goes in a curbside bin. Some grocery stores collect clean bags and film separately, which is a different stream entirely. |
| 5 — PP | Yogurt cups, takeout containers, bottle caps | Accepted in some programs, not in others, and market demand is inconsistent |
| 6 — PS | Foam and rigid polystyrene | Rarely accepted. Foam in particular is mostly landfilled. |
| 7 — Other | Everything that is not 1 through 6, including multilayer and bio-based plastics | A catch-all category, not a material. Almost never recyclable curbside. |
The honest summary is that codes 1 and 2 in rigid bottle form have real recycling markets in most of the country, and 3 through 7 are frequently landfilled regardless of the number, whether or not the local program tells you to put them in the bin. That is uncomfortable and it is also the situation. It is a reasonable argument for buying less packaging rather than for sorting it more carefully.
Wish-cycling is the expensive mistake
Wish-cycling is putting something in the recycling bin because it seems like it ought to be recyclable, or because you hope someone downstream will figure it out. It feels harmless and generous. It is neither.
Material recovery facilities run mechanical and optical sorting lines with human quality control, at speed. Items the line is not designed for cause specific, expensive failures. Plastic bags and film wrap around the rotating screens and shut the line down while a worker cuts them free by hand — this is the single most common cause of downtime at these facilities. Food residue and liquid soak into the paper travelling with it and downgrade it below the point where anyone will buy it. Broken glass embeds in paper and cardboard bales. Textiles, hoses and cords tangle in the machinery.
The consequence is that contamination gets whole loads rejected. When a batch exceeds the contamination threshold the buyer will accept, it is landfilled — including everything in it that was correctly sorted. Your clean cardboard goes to the landfill because of somebody's greasy pizza box and a bag of trash tied shut. When in doubt, put it in the trash. That is not a defeatist position; it is the choice that keeps the rest of the load recyclable.
The two rules that are universal
Empty, and dry. Containers should be emptied of food and liquid and be dry when they go in the bin. They do not need to be washed to a sparkle — that wastes water for no benefit — but scraped out and rinsed if greasy, then left to dry. Wet paper is not recyclable paper, and a container with liquid in it wets everything around it in the truck.
Loose, not bagged. Unless your program specifically instructs otherwise, recyclables go into the bin loose. A tied plastic bag of correctly sorted recyclables is usually pulled off the line and landfilled unopened, because facilities cannot open bags safely and cannot assume the contents. The bag itself is also the item that jams the machinery.
Beyond those two, a short list of items that are near-universally excluded from curbside programs, and several of them cause harm rather than just inconvenience.
| Item | Where it goes instead |
|---|---|
| Plastic bags, film, bubble wrap, shrink wrap | Store drop-off collection where available. Never the curbside bin. |
| Lithium-ion batteries — phones, laptops, power tools, vapes, anything rechargeable | A battery collection point, always. Crushed in a truck or a sorting line they ignite, and battery fires at collection facilities and in trucks are a serious and growing problem. This one matters more than any sorting question on this page. |
| Electronics | An e-waste event or a retailer take-back program |
| Paint, solvents, motor oil, pesticides, pool chemicals | A household hazardous waste collection site |
| Needles and sharps | An approved sharps container and a designated disposal point. Never loose in any bin, for the sake of the people who handle it. |
| Ceramics, drinking glasses, window glass, mirrors, ovenware | Trash. Different melting point from container glass, and it ruins a glass batch. |
| Greasy pizza boxes and food-soaked paper | Compost if you have it, otherwise trash. Tear off and recycle the clean lid. |
| Coffee cups, ice cream cartons, most to-go cups | Trash in most programs. They are paper laminated with plastic, and few facilities can separate the layers. |
| Clothing and textiles | Donation or a textile collection point — see garment care for keeping them wearable longer |
| Propane cylinders, aerosols with contents remaining | Hazardous waste. They explode under compaction. |
Reduction is the part that is actually under your control
Recycling sits third in the familiar order for a reason: reduce, reuse, recycle is a ranking by effectiveness, not a list of equal options. Recycling any material consumes energy for collection, transport and reprocessing, and most materials degrade each cycle — paper fibers shorten, plastic polymers lose strength — so almost nothing is truly circular. Aluminum is the standout exception, recycling into equivalent material indefinitely at a small fraction of the energy of primary production, which is why aluminum cans have real value and are worth putting in the bin.
Everything upstream of the bin does more. Buying in less packaging, refusing single-use items you did not need, and not throwing away food are all larger effects than perfect sorting. Household food waste in particular is enormous in the US, and cutting it is entirely a storage and planning problem rather than an environmental one — most spoilage is food lost at the back of a shelf, which is what a fridge inventory tracker and the practices in refrigerator storage address directly.
If there is one thing to take from this page, it is a division of labor. The specifics belong to your municipality and change without notice, so bookmark their list and check it once a year. The general principles do not change: empty and dry, loose in the bin, batteries never, and when you genuinely do not know, the trash is the responsible answer rather than the lazy one.
Questions people ask
Why do recycling rules differ so much between cities?
Because recycling is a local service, not a national program. Each city, county or contracted hauler sends material to a specific processing facility, and what the bin accepts depends on what that facility can physically sort and on whether there is a buyer for the sorted output. Both change over time — equipment is upgraded, contracts turn over, and commodity markets for paper, glass and mixed plastics move enough that programs add and drop materials. That is why the only reliable source is your own city or hauler website, and why a rule you learned at a previous address may now be wrong.
Does the number inside the recycling triangle mean the item is recyclable?
No. That is a resin identification code, created to identify the plastic type. It is not a statement that anyone accepts or recycles the item. In practice, code 1 in bottle form and code 2 have established markets and are widely accepted, while 3 through 7 are frequently landfilled regardless of the number and regardless of whether the local program tells you to bin them. The chasing-arrows shape around the number has caused decades of confusion, and it is worth treating as a material label rather than a promise.
What is wish-cycling and why does it matter?
It is putting something in the recycling bin because it seems like it should be recyclable or because you hope it will be sorted out later. The cost is real: plastic bags and film wrap around sorting screens and shut the line down, food residue and liquid soak into the paper travelling with it and ruin its value, and broken glass embeds in cardboard bales. When contamination in a load exceeds what the buyer will accept, the whole batch is landfilled — including everything in it that was correctly sorted. When you are unsure, the trash is the choice that protects the rest of the load.
How clean do containers need to be?
Empty and dry, not spotless. Scrape food out, rinse anything greasy or sticky, and let it dry before it goes in the bin. Scrubbing to a shine wastes water for no gain. The reason the rule exists is that liquid and residue wet the paper and cardboard travelling in the same truck, and wet paper cannot be recycled. Unless your program says otherwise, put items in loose rather than bagged, because a tied bag is normally pulled from the line and landfilled unopened.
Where do batteries and electronics go?
Never in either curbside bin. Lithium-ion batteries — from phones, laptops, power tools, vapes and anything rechargeable — ignite when crushed in a collection truck or on a sorting line, and battery fires at waste facilities are a serious and growing hazard for the people who work there. Take them to a battery collection point, which many hardware and electronics retailers host. Electronics go to an e-waste event or a retailer take-back program, and paint, solvents, motor oil and pesticides go to a household hazardous waste site. Your municipality publishes the locations for all of these.