Green Living

Okay, So What Can I Really Recycle?

There is some confusion out there about what can actually go in the recycle bin on trash day. A former neighbor of mine and I once had a long conversation about this in front of our trash receptacles and went through a number of items asking the age old question: blue or black? I’d like to help clear up any confusion, at least for those of in the City of L.A.

So, when you’ve reduced and reused and you’ve got some stuff left over, here’s what CAN be recycled:

PAPER. That’s clean, dry paper that runs the gamut: wax paper sans food waste, newspaper, magazines, junk mail, and my favorite new addition: Post-It notes.

CARDBOARD. Cardboard boxes of all kinds can be recycled from moving to cereal to corrugated to toilet rolls, which aren’t boxes but are cardboard nonetheless. And, if you flatten them, you get a gold star.

METALS LIKE ALUMINUM AND TIN. Soup cans, tuna cans, cleanish aluminum foil, and paint or aerosol cans (tops off) all go straight to the blue bin. And now, we can even put wire hangers in there, too.

GLASS. Glass bottles all can be recycled whether they were filled with spaghetti sauce, baby food, or applesauce. You get another gold star if you rinse them. Though instead the reuse principle can be used ingeniously here—think of all the bulk bin shopping and push pin storing you can do with those.

PLASTIC. All clean plastic can be recycled in L.A. And, as for those numbers on the bottom of containers, they do tell us which are easier to process, but now it doesn’t really matter as they can all get recycled. What does matter is which are more toxic to store food in so you may want to check out this resource from CHEC (Children’s Health Environmental Coalition) on avoiding the baddies, #3, #6, and #7.

Plastics are petroleum products and they can’t be recycled into more plastic like glass or paper; they’re always reincarnated into something else—a bag or a bench or a walkway. So, avoid plastic at all costs, but if you find yourself with plastic containers, Styrofoam, plastic bags, plastic coat hangers, plastic non-electric toys, or plastic laundry baskets you can’t find a use for, toss them in the blue can and vow to avoid getting another item made of that in the future.

You can read about what our Assembly is working on to decrease plastic bags in the first place from local hero, Heal the bay.

And, learn more about recycling from the Bureau of Sanitation.

Tags: city of la recycling, LA recycling guide, recycling guide, what can you recycle, what to recycle