How to Recycle in New York City

Recycling has become rather confusing and before you give up completely, or begin carrying all your recycling around to the closest wholefoods, we have some tips and did some investigative research to clarify the confusing myths.

All your recycling has to be placed in CLEAR PLASTIC BAGS ONLY. If you carry down your recycling in another colored bag make sure to empty the bag and recycle it separately.
You can recycle plain clean plastic bags, none with draw strings or any other material in your local whole foods, chain drug stores, and many chain grocery stores. For more information on this new addition to recycling check www.plasticbagrecycling.org

All plastic caps must be removed from bottles, they are not recyclable, metal caps are ok.

Pizza boxes are paper and can be recycled if they have a few spots of oil, heavily soiled pizza boxes cannot be recycled. The same goes for any paper and/or plastic. Make sure to rinse out cans and bottles before recycling them. Soiled containers will not be recycled.

All your yogurt, margarine, and take out plastics, which are #5 plastic cannot be placed in NYC recycling. These can be rinsed out and brought to a wholefoods where a company preserve makes razors and toothbrushes out of them.

If you place something in the recycling bin that is not able to be recycled (#5 container, plastic caps, platic bags, etc) it is at the discretion of the recycling collector if the whole bag will be thrown out. So an improper item can contaminate the whole bag and that's a real shame. Please educate yourself and recycle correctly.