Items properly placed in your curbside recycling carts (wheeled cart, like your garbage can on wheels) are sorted and baled at the city’s Salt Lake City facility for sale to reuse.
Three things to know
- Do NOT put plastic bags, films, or wraps in the blue recycling cart! Collect it and return to grocery stores – most offer bag recycling. Here’s more info on that topic.
- In addition, do NOT BAG RECYCLABLES, using plastic garbage bags, before you put them in your blue recycling cart. This risks landfilling valuable material.
- Just a little food and liquid waste can contaminate your entire blue recycling cart, forcing the city to landfill recyclables. Rinse food and empty bottles and cans. Don’t overdue it – conserve water as well.
Yes! Put these items in blue recycling carts
- Newspaper and newspaper inserts
- Cardboard boxes, shoe boxes, cereal boxes, paper tubes
- Magazines and phone books
- Aluminum cans
- Steel (tin) food cans
- Plastic containers (like milk jugs, plastic bottles, plastic cups, yogurt containers, etc)
- Junk mail, office paper, envelopes
- Aerosol cans – please make sure they are drained by turning them upside down and releasing the pressure.
No! Don’t put these in blue recycling carts
- Glass (Sign up for curbside glass recycling or take yours to a community drop-off location.)
- Plastic bags
- Styrofoam, including take-out containers and block foam
- Food, food residue, or food wrappings – empty all food and food residue from containers
- Milk or juice cartons (known as aseptic packaging). Think paper carton with a plastic lining.
- Construction materials and waste
- Napkins, paper towels, toilet paper, paper plates
- Scrap metal
- Clothing
- Electronics, computers, small appliances
- Yard waste
- Toys, garden hoses, plastic swimming pools
- Shredded paper
Why recycle?
- It’s not only good for the planet, recycling costs less. We only have so much space in our landfill, and selling recyclables helps the city offset recycling costs. Once we run out of landfill space, city residents pay to transport waste further.
- The City Council passed a joint resolution in 2011 to get to Zero Waste by 2040, understanding the environmental, economic and social advantages this will bring. We need help to reach that goal!
Related
Contact
- 801-535-6999
- mySLC online, scroll down and click on Waste & Recycling
- For up-to-date info visit SLC Green on X (formerly Twitter) https://x.com/SLCgreen
- 2010 W 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104
- Hours: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.