Recycling 101
A practical guide to every major material stream: what belongs in the bin, what doesn't, and why. Rules vary by municipality; treat this page as the fundamentals and your local program as the final word.
The Basics
how recycling actually works
Recycling is a manufacturing supply chain, not a magic bin.
Whatever you put in the bin gets collected, sorted at a materials recovery facility (MRF), baled, and sold as feedstock to manufacturers. If a bale is contaminated (food residue, wrong materials, tangled items), its value drops and it may be landfilled anyway.
That's why the rules matter: clean, empty, dry, and loose. One greasy container can spoil an entire bale of paper. Plastic bags jam sorting machinery. When you recycle well, the material actually gets a second life; when you guess, it often doesn't.
The scale of the gap is large: Canada discarded 5,152 kt of plastic in 2022 and reprocessed only about 6.5% of it into new pellets, flakes, and fibres.1
Plastics
know your resin codes
The number in the triangle is a resin code, not a promise of recyclability.
Only some resins have strong recycling markets. Bottles and jugs (#1, #2) are the reliable ones; most programs also take #5 tubs. Film, bags, and foam almost never belong in a curbside bin.
- Beverage + food bottles and jars (#1)
- Milk jugs, detergent bottles (#2)
- Yogurt tubs, takeout containers (#5, check locally)
- Rinsed, with lids on (most programs)
- Plastic bags + film (jams sorters; use store drop-off)
- Foam / polystyrene of any kind
- Straws, cutlery, and anything smaller than a credit card
- "Compostable" bioplastics (different stream entirely)
Paper + Cardboard
the fibre stream
Paper fibre can be recycled five to seven times before it wears out, provided it stays clean and dry.
Cardboard is one of the most valuable curbside materials. Flatten boxes so they sort correctly and take less space. Wet or food-soiled fibre can't be recycled: grease physically ruins the pulping process.
- Flattened cardboard boxes
- Office paper, mail, newspaper, magazines
- Paperboard (cereal boxes, shoe boxes)
- Clean pizza-box lids (tear off the greasy half)
- Grease- or food-soiled paper
- Used paper towels, napkins, tissues
- Wax- or plastic-coated cups (most programs)
- Loose shredded paper (bags of it jam sorters; check locally)
Glass
infinitely recyclable
Container glass can be melted and remade forever with no loss of quality.
The catch: only container glass. Window panes, drinking glasses, ceramics, and heat-treated glass (like bakeware) have different melting points and ruin batches of new containers. Some municipalities collect glass separately or not at all; check yours.
- Bottles: any colour, rinsed
- Food jars, lids removed (recycle metal lids with metals)
- Window or mirror glass
- Drinking glasses, ceramics, porcelain
- Heat-resistant bakeware
- Light bulbs (CFLs are hazardous-waste drop-off)
Metals
the highest-value stream
Recycling aluminum uses roughly 95% less energy than producing it from ore. It is the recycling success story.
Aluminum and steel cans can be recycled indefinitely. Scrap metal (pans, tools, wire) is valuable too, but it belongs at a scrap yard or metal drop-off, not in the curbside bin where it damages equipment.
- Aluminum cans, rinsed
- Steel / tin food cans
- Clean aluminum foil, balled up (check locally)
- Empty aerosol cans (most programs)
- Scrap metal, tools, cookware (take to scrap yard)
- Wire, cables, hangers (tanglers)
- Partially full aerosol or propane cans (hazardous)
Batteries + E-Waste
never in the bin. ever.
Batteries do not go in any curbside bin, recycling or trash. Crushed lithium cells start fires in trucks and facilities.
Every battery type has a proper drop-off route: household battery collection points, hazardous-waste facilities, and retailer take-back programs. Electronics carry both recoverable metals and hazardous components, so they belong in dedicated e-waste programs.
Disposable vapes are the worst offender: a lithium cell, sealed in plastic, marketed as trash. Most are discarded with the cell still healthy. Embedded cells also make them a fire vector: discarded batteries drove 448 waste-facility fires across the US and Canada in 2025, with vapes a named driver.3 This is the waste stream Project HEX exists to intercept: we collect them, reclaim the cells, and build them into modular solar-topped power units.
Take-back is still patchy in Canada. Quebec runs the only operating vape program (launched 2025); BC has none today, but a producer-funded program is legislated for October 2027.4 Until then, a household battery drop-off or a specialist collector is the only compliant route.
- Household batteries → collection points (many retailers)
- Lithium / rechargeable → battery take-back programs
- Phones, laptops, cables → e-waste drop-off
- Disposable vapes → vape take-back, or send them to us
- Any battery in curbside recycling
- Any battery in household trash
- Electronics in curbside recycling
- Tape-free loose lithium cells (tape the terminals)
Organics
food + yard waste
Food waste in a landfill decomposes without oxygen and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composted, it becomes soil.
If your area has green-bin collection, use it for food scraps and yard trimmings. If not, backyard composting handles fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, eggshells, and leaves. Keep meat, dairy, and oils out of home compost; they attract pests and break down poorly.
- Fruit + vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, eggshells
- Yard trimmings, leaves, plain paper (home compost)
- Meat + dairy in municipal green bins (check locally)
- Plastic of any kind, including "compostable" bioplastic at home
- Meat, dairy, oils in backyard piles
- Pet waste (pathogens)
Textiles
the forgotten stream
Clothing never belongs in the curbside bin, but almost all of it can be reused or recycled through the right channel.
Wearable clothing should be donated or resold. Damaged textiles still have value: many donation centers and dedicated textile-recycling programs accept worn-out items and turn them into insulation, rags, and fibre fill. Landfilling clothing wastes both the material and everything it took to make it.
- Wearable → donation, resale, repair
- Damaged → textile-recycling drop-off (label items "rags")
- Shoes, linens, curtains → most textile programs take them
- Any textiles in curbside recycling (tanglers)
- Wet or moldy textiles in donation bins
Golden Rules
if you remember nothing else
Five rules cover 95% of good recycling.
Rinse containers. One saucy jar can contaminate a whole bale.
Put items in the bin loose. Bagged loads get landfilled unopened.
Hoses, cords, wire, textiles, chains: they shut down sorting lines.
Not recycling, not trash. Drop-off only. Fires are not hypothetical.
Wishcycling does more harm than landfilling. Check your local list.
Sources
data references
Figures on this page trace to primary Canadian sources.
- Statistics Canada · Physical flow account for plastic material, 2022 (released 2026): 5,152 kt discarded, roughly 6.5% reprocessed into pellets, flakes and fibres. statcan.gc.ca
- Recycling Council of BC · no set BC program accepts plastics from business; Merlin Plastics' buy list covers PET/PP/PE but omits PS and ABS. rcbc.ca · merlinplastics.com
- Fire Rover via Resource Recycling · 448 publicly reported fires at US and Canadian waste and recycling facilities in 2025 (approximately $2.5B in damages); vaping devices cited as a driver. resource-recycling.com
- Call2Recycle · Quebec vape program (launched January 2025) and draft 2025–2029 BC plan; Recycling Regulation, B.C. Reg. 449/2004 (approved BC vape plan required October 1, 2027). call2recycle.ca · bclaws.gov.bc.ca