What Can I Recycle?
Through advances in recycling technology, you have more options than ever. And it's a good thing because we need to conserve as much of our resources as possible. In this section, you'll learn about which materials you can and can't put in your bin.
See how the actions you take affect the environment.
Experience MoreWhat can I place in my recycling bin?
Metals
Do you think of your empty soda cans and food cans as a natural resource? They are. The scrap value of the 36 billion aluminum cans Americans discarded in one year alone was about $600 million. Apart from the economic impact, the environmental savings of recycling metal are enormous. Recycling steel and tin cans, for example, saves 74% of the energy used to produce them. A steel mill that uses recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution and mining wastes by about 70%.