Life in a busy urban area creates challenges when it comes to waste disposal. Even with city-wide recycling and waste management programs, the lack of space and reliance on public transportation make recycling difficult. If you have a car and can drive to a drop-off center, it can be an all-day venture and costly when it comes to owning and parking your car in the city.

Your goal is to limit the amount of trash you generate. Recycling is key, but it’s challenging. How do you recycle everything when you live in an urban area?

Why Is Recycling in a Big City so Challenging?

One of the biggest issues with recycling in a large city is the restriction on what is accepted at drop-off centers. Take Chicago for example. Recycling drop-off centers accept:

• Beverage Cartons: Juice, milk, or soy products
• Glass: Jars and bottles
• Metal: Aluminum cans, aluminum foil, aluminum pie and bread tins, steel cans, and tin cans.
• Paper: Cardboard, cardboard beverage carriers, catalogs, cereal boxes, file folders, junk mail, newspapers, newspaper inserts, office paper, paper bags, paper greeting cards, paper towel core, phone books, toilet paper core, and wrapping paper
• Plastic: Plastic bottles and containers marked 1 to 5 and 7, #6 is not accepted, and plastic ring beverage carriers

There’s a lot that is not accepted at drop-off centers, such as clothing and textiles, electronics, plastic or metal clothes hangers, construction debris, plastic film products like shopping bags, and paints/spray paints. It’s up to you to find the nearest location to bring those for recycling, which is why it can become an all-day event as you drive from one location to the next.

Study Your City’s Recycling Landscape

Before you can recycle correctly, you need to get to know the rules. Research what materials are accepted in your city. How do you prepare them for recycling? When do you have to set them out for curbside recycling or pick-up from your building’s waste and recycling area?

Your city’s waste and recycling department will have guides to help you. If they don’t or you haven’t found one, email them to ask for assistance.

Are there places you can bring recyclables to within your neighborhood? If needed, use the recycling search tool at Recycle Nation to build a list of recycling centers.

Sorting and Storing Recyclables Until Recycling Day

Storing recyclables until it’s recycling day is a frustrating problem in a city. You have limited space, so you can’t have recycling bins lined up against the wall or outside in the hallway. 

The best way to make sorting simple and take up less space is by using vertical storage. Get a narrow shelf with bins for different items. A stainless-steel baker’s rack with a plastic tote on each shelf gives you plenty of organization space.

Tackling Other Waste Streams That Make Recycling Challenging

Some items end up in the trash because it’s the better option in a city. It doesn’t have to be that way, and some items pose a danger to recycling and trash workers if they are thrown away instead of recycled.

• Bulk Items

Have you ever walked down a city street and come across someone’s old sofa sitting on the corner with a free sign? It’s a nice way to promote reuse, but many people leave the item out through inclement weather, or pests like mice and rats chew their way inside, making the sofa worthless.

If you have bulk items for recycling, look for a company that will haul it away. Check your area’s event calendars for any neighborhood bulk item recycling days. Otherwise, rent a truck or van, if you don’t have a vehicle that’s large enough and bring it to the nearest recycling center.

• Electronics

Lithium-ion batteries have started many fires when they’re improperly disposed of. Don’t throw away a rechargeable device or batteries. Recycle them instead. Watch for community electronics recycling days or bring them to a participating recycler like Best Buy or Staples.

• Food Waste

Composting is hard in the city due to a lack of outdoor space. There are two ways to compost food scraps within your apartment or home. Look into indoor electric composters that grind food scraps into tiny particles. The compost can be mixed with potting soil for window boxes or rooftop gardens.

The other option is to start a worm farm. Worms love to eat your kitchen scraps. They eat the food for you and produce worm castings that are great fertilizer. You could sell that fertilizer and make a bit of money in the process.

• Textiles

Old clothing, sheets, blankets, towels, etc. are not recyclable in most blue bins or drop-off recycling systems. Post ads in your community to see if anyone could use them. Old clothing is handy for gathering a lot of quilt squares. Some retailers, such as H&M, accept used clothing and offer discounts you can use to replenish your wardrobe after a clean out of clothing that’s damaged or no longer fits correctly.

Reduce, Reuse, and Support the Circular Economy

Recycling is important, but it’s also important to shop wisely. The goal is to reduce waste and limit how much you’re sending into the recycling stream.

• Borrow or Share

You’re replacing your apartment’s laminate flooring. You know you can do it, but you need the cutting tool. Instead of buying something you plan to use once, borrow it from someone else. If there is no borrow and share program in your building or neighborhood, start one.

• Repair or Repurpose

Before you dispose of something that’s broken, consider having it repaired instead. Your laptop is older and the space bar stops working. Bring it to a computer repair shop to have it fixed instead of buying new. 

Your TV stops working and internet searches show you that it’s the backlighting. Watch a video and purchase the repair kit and fix it yourself instead of purchasing a new TV.

If you don’t want to, post an ad offering a free TV to others who may want to save money and fix it.

• Shop to Reduce Packaging

Instead of buying small bags of boxes of daily-use items, look at purchasing goods in bulk when possible. Instead of a small box of sugar packets for your coffee or tea, buy a bag of sugar and store it in an airtight container.

• Use Reusable and Refillable Packages and Containers

You hate how your city water tastes. Instead of purchasing a case of water bottles, purchase a water filter pitcher that you can use to refill a reusable water bottle. You could also invest in an under-the-sink water filter system to remove unpleasant tastes.

You love to stop and get a coffee while walking to work. Bring a refillable coffee cup instead of using the coffee shop’s single-use cups. Many coffeehouses offer a discount when you bring a refillable cup.

Keep Up with Regulation Changes

Cities change their recycling policies over time. You might learn a month from now that #7 plastic is no longer accepted or that your neighborhood now has a battery recycling bin at the nearby hardware store. Sign up for all community newsletters and local government notices to stay in the loop.

Make it a habit to check Recycle Nation’s search tool to ensure that the things that you need to recycle are accepted where you plan to go. Within seconds, you’ll have a list of the closest recycling facilities and their hours, which makes it much easier to ensure you are not throwing away items that could be recycled.