Recycling Guidelines

These guidelines are for the Manitowoc County Recycling Center.  Be sure to contact your curbside hauler or municipal drop off site for their specific guidelines or questionable items.

Plastic

Plastic #1 and #2 Bottles – Bottles only; check for a neck. Empty and flatten. Remove the caps when possible. No tub or pail shaped containers or bottles that contained oil or pesticide. No plastic wraps, films, bags, trays, clam shells, deli trays, pails, packaging peanuts, styrofoam, or any other non bottle shaped plastic items. Please do not tie milk jugs together or tie in plastic bags. Plastic bags mixed in with plastic containers are a major contaminate and need to be removed be hand; they are not recycled when mixed with plastic bottles. Plastic bags can be recycled through bag recycling drop offs at many local grocers and shopping centers.

Paper

Paper – Includes newspapers, junk mail, magazines, construction paper, computer paper, paper egg cartons, beverage carriers, paper cups (remove lids/straws), books (remove excessive metal or plastic bindings). Paper should be mostly clean and dry and placed in a brown paper bag. No heavily soiled paper or paper coated with foil or glitter, or laminated papers.

Cardboard

Includes most shipping and packing boxes, slip sheets, cores/tubes from rolled products, beverage carriers. Cardboard should be mostly clean and dry. Remove any Styrofoam or packing peanuts. Flatten boxes. No cardboard coated with foil or glitter, or laminated cardboard.. No cardboard heavily contaminated with food or oil. Pizza boxes with moderate grease/cheese spots are acceptable. Do not tie cardboard together in bundles, the strings must be removed by hand and strings can tangle in moving equipment.

Cartons

Cartons – Food and beverage cartons including shelf stable and refrigerated cartons for wine, milk, juice, cream, soup and egg substitutes.  Cartons should be emptied, flattened and placed in with the plastic bottles.

Glass Bottles

Glass Bottles – Any color glass bottle or jar can be recycled.  No lids or caps.  Rinse out and remove labels if easy to do so.  No non-bottle glass including window glass, light bulbs, clay, ceramics, drinking glasses or ovenware.

Cans

Cans – Tin, steel, bi-metal, and aluminum cans only.  Coated cans, foil and pie tins are ok.  Rinse and remove labels if possible. Other scrap metal can go to a scrap metal recycler.