Packaging and recycling
Pizza boxes, cartons, plastics, glass and the other packaging whose place in the blue cart depends on the local list.
How to Recycle Plastic Bags and Film
Plastic bags and film stay out of curbside recycling. Check retail take-back or a local drop-off.
How to dispose of shredded paper: bag, compost or trash
Shredded paper is too small for most sorting lines. Some cities want it bagged, some compost it, some say trash.
Plastic recycling numbers 1 to 7: what your city takes
Plastic recycling numbers 1 to 7 name the resin, not your city's rule. How Denver, Austin and Seattle sort plastics.
How to Dispose of Broken Glass Safely
How to dispose of broken glass: local packaging rules for shards, bottles, mirrors and windows.
How to dispose of Styrofoam: is Styrofoam recyclable?
Foam almost never goes in the recycling cart. A few cities take clean foam blocks by pickup or drop-off.
Pizza boxes are a local rule, not a national yes or no
A pizza box is cardboard with grease. Some cities take it in recycling. Some do not.
Whether a material is recyclable depends on the mill that buys it and the program that collects it, so the same box is recycling in one city and trash in the next. The guides here cover what is true about each material everywhere, the producer-responsibility laws that are changing the lists, and how to read your own city’s accepted-materials page.
Where to start
Broken glass explains why shards need local packaging instructions, with separate examples from New York City and Charlotte.
Plastic recycling numbers explains what the 1 to 7 in the triangle means, why Denver, Austin and Seattle sort by shape instead, and where California’s SB 343 label rule stands.
Open pizza boxes for the worked example: Portland, Oregon accepts empty greasy boxes in recycling since August 28, 2026, and that rule stops at the city line. Styrofoam shows why the #6 on foam is not a yes: Phoenix refuses foam in the blue container, Seattle picks up clean foam blocks free and Austin recycles them at its drop-off center. Every city edition on States & Cities links the collector’s own accepted-materials page, which is the list that decides; New York City shows how recycling containers and clear bags are handled, and Chicago how Blue Cart recycling runs on its own calendar. Your state page notes a container deposit law where one exists.