Can plastic bags be recycled?

Published on March 07, 2022

A common question from residents in the RethinkWaste service area is, can plastic bags be recycled? Plastic bags are not accepted in your blue recycling cart or bin at home, and instead belong in the landfill. Although plastics bags can be reused.

All materials placed into recycling carts and bins are processed at the Materials Recovery Facility, which is a part of the Shoreway Environmental Center in San Carlos. At the facility, machines use rolling disks to sort the recyclables. One kind in particular, the paper screens, are prone to getting jams. As the discs spin, any soft flimsy plastic that was mistakenly placed in the recycling, such as plastic bags, gets wrapped around the discs, reducing the effectiveness of the machine. When a jam occurs, the machine and facility are shut down and a worker must cut out all of the plastic by hand, which can be time consuming and dangerous.

If reuse is not a possibility, you can take part in the plastic bag drop-off program. You may have seen a box that says “recycle your plastic bags here” or something similar, around your local grocery store or at the mall.