Recycling

The City’s recycling program only accepts certain materials. These include clean paper and cardboard, plastic bottles, tubs and containers, glass bottles and jars, aluminum foil, and cartons such as milk or juice cartons. Please only recycle those items on ourRecycle Rightlist and make sure to keep all recycling LOOSE inside your curbside cart. Do not bag it.

There are many reasons to recycle, including helping prevent environmental harm, job creation, and supporting the circular economy. However, on a local level, we encourage our residents to recycle to helpextend the life of our landfills.

Oklahoma City is serviced by four landfills, and each has limited space. By diverting good, recyclable materials away from our landfills and into the recycling stream for reuse, we can help extend the useful life of our landfills, which in turn helps keep our future trash and recycling costs low.

Once the contents of your Big Green cart are emptied into a recycling truck, they are combined with items from other households and taken to the local Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) for sorting. Items are emptied directly from trucks into a large warehouse-type space called the “tipping floor.” They are then scooped up and put on a series of conveyor belts to begin the sorting process.

Items are FIRST sorted by hand where workers along fast-moving conveyor belts manually pull unwanted materials out of the recycling stream and put them in chutes to be returned to the landfill. Remaining items go through a series of industrial sorters, including screens, magnets, blowers and an optical scanner that reads plastics by type. Once sorted by material type, they are then bundled, baled and put onto trucks for transport to various manufacturers who accept them for reuse.

• Paper, cardboard and cartons are recycled at two paper mills here in Oklahoma. 
• Glass is transported to north Texas where it is crushed and used to make roadbed, decorative tile, industrial sanding materials, and other glass products.
• Plastics and aluminum are transported to facilities within the South/Southwest region of the US where they are then turned into other consumer goods. Where they go is dependent upon market demand and which facility can accept them at the time we are sending them out.

Contamination describes any item that enters the recycling stream that does not belong there. This includes items that are NOT recyclable (food and liquids, car parts, hangers, etc.) or are not accepted in a specific recycling program.

In Oklahoma City’s program, items like plastic bags and polystyrene foam are NOT accepted even though technically they can be recycled. We recommend taking plastic bags and film plastic to a big box or grocery store that accepts them. 

There are two reasons we ask customers to leave recyclable items loose in their Big Green carts and not bag them:

1. Plastic bags are not accepted in our recycling program. This includes all film bags (grocery or shopping bags), trash bags, bubble wrap, snack or pet food bags, magazine or newspaper wraps, bread bags, etc. Plastic bags and similar items get tangled up in our equipment and can cause production to shut down while workers cut the bags out of the sorting screens and cogs. 

2. For production time and worker safety, we can’t open bags to empty contents, even if the bags contain good recyclable items. Recyclable items put into bags and sent to the MRF are pulled out of the recycling stream and returned to the landfill. 

No. To ensure your recycling makes it as far as possible, please make sure all items are “Empty, Clean and Dry.” This means that there should be no food residue or liquid inside of them.

For clear liquids such as water, soft drinks, wine, etc., empty the container and let the bottle dry without the lid overnight. For milk, cream, yogurt, and containers from spaghetti sauce, chili and thicker foods, rinse them thoroughly and then set out to dry before putting them in your Big Green recycling cart. 

No. Numbers are mainly for use by recycling manufacturers who accept specific types of material, especially different plastic types.

Numbers also can reflect different sub-sets of recyclables under a specific number group. Within each numbered group, there may be some items that we accept and some that we do NOT, which can lead to additional contamination if people read a number and believe that item is accepted in our program.

We prefer customers focus on specific types of materials such as bottles, plastic and glass bottles, jars and food containers, paper goods, cardboard and cartons, glass bottles and jars, and aluminum cans.

No. Plastic bottles and containers that enter our materials recovery facility are sorted based upon whether they are clear (water and most soft drink bottles) or opaque (detergent and shampoo bottles, yogurt and sour cream containers, etc.). When a clear bottle is crushed, this changes the way our optical scanner can read its type, and it can be missorted or sent back to the landfill.

Please do not crush plastic bottles or containers. You are welcome to crush aluminum cans.

There is no need to remove labels from any item you put into the recycling stream. Lids can stay on or off. Even metal lids can be put back on glass jars. Just make sure all items are empty, clean and dry.