Residential Trash Regulations

How to Sort Your Organics, Recycling, and Trash

What Can I Put in My Recycling Container?

The City provides curbside collection of trash, mixed recycling, and green waste. The City of Claremont takes its recycling to a processing center. In order for the recyclables to be processed, they need to be separated, dry, and free of trash. Knowing what to recycle and how to recycle can be confusing. One wrong item in the recycling container can contaminate the whole load. When in doubt, use the trash container.

Paper & Cardboard

  • Flattened cardboard, newspaper, magazines, office paper, and common mail can be recycled as long as they aren't contaminated by food, liquid or waste.
  • Break down cardboard boxes. It makes them easier to process and leaves more room for other recyclables.
  • Paper can't be recycled if it's mixed with other materials. Remove the bubble wrap or plastic windows before recycling padded packaging or security envelopes.
  • The City's contract recycling facility cannot effectively sort shredded paper and requests that shredded paper be placed in the black trash container.

Metal Cans

  • Before recycling food and drink cans, clean out any residual materials.
  • Some metal cans have an insulated coating that might not be recyclable. When in doubt, throw it out!

Plastic

  • While hard plastic containers like water bottles, milk jugs, and detergent containers can go in your container, flexible plastics like grocery bags, bubble wrap, and Styrofoam require special handling and can't be recycled curbside.
  • Lids are too small to recycle by themselves so put them on the containers or throw them away.
  • If you can poke your finger through the plastic, it doesn't belong in your recycling container.
  • Food and condiment bottles are great recycling candidates. Just be sure they're rinsed and dry before you put them in your recycling container.
  • Only plastics with resin codes #1 and #2 are recyclable.

No Soiled or Wet Materials

  • One dirty item can contaminate an entire truckload, so make sure recyclables are empty, clean, and dry.
  • Once cardboard or paper comes into contact with food or liquid, it can no longer be recycled.

Don't Bag or Contain

  • Never bag or bundle your recyclables. Items should be placed in the container individually.
  • Plastic bags can get caught in the machinery causing delays and damage to equipment.
  • Bundled recyclables can't be sorted at the facility, so all of it ends up in a landfill.

No Connected or Mixed Materials

  • When two or more materials are connected they cannot be recycled as is, even if they're all recyclable.
  • If all of the mixed materials are recyclable, like a plastic package with a paper insert, separate the items and put them in your container individually.
  • If only part of the mixed material is recyclable, like a window enve­lope, separate the plastic portion from the paper and recycle the paper.

What Can I Put in My Organics Container?

  • Food Waste: Leftovers, fruits and vegetables, breads and grains, solid dairy products, meats, seafood, bones, egg shells, and coffee grounds. Food waste may be placed in a transparent/see-through plastic bag for cleanliness before placing scraps in the organics container.
  • Green Waste: Grass clippings, leaves, plant prunings, flowers, weeds, twigs, small branches (less than 4 inches in diameter and 4 feet in length).
  • Prohibited items: palm fronds, succulents, cacti, large wood, stumps, animal waste, paper, napkins, paper towels, grease, and compostable/biodegradable products and bags should not be placed in the organics container.
  • More information on organics recycling.

Thank You For Your Cooperation.

For more information, call the Community Services Department at (909) 399-5431.

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