Recycle This Pittsburgh

Aluminum Beverage Cans

About These Items

These cans, such as soda cans or beer cans, are commonly used for single-serving beverage packaging. The City of Pittsburgh accepts these cans in curbside recycling. However, detached tabs should not be put into curbside recycling as these small items won’t make it through recycling sorting process.

It’s important not to contaminate curbside recyclables with liquids, so be sure to rinse out these cans before setting out for recycling.

These Cans are Very Recyclable.

Aluminum cans are highly recyclable, although only about 16% of these cans are recycled here in the United States, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aluminum in our landfills. These metal cans can be successfully recycled over and over without the degradation problems seen in plastic, making cans a relatively sustainable form of packaging- as long as they make it into the recycling stream.

Don’t crush cans unless you’re dropping off.

Can crushing is fine if the material is being dropped off at a roll-off site with a bin specifically collecting aluminum cans- in fact, it’s preferred because it helps them get more weight per haul. The problem is when cans are crushed and put in the curbside bin to be taken to the MRF (Materials Recovery Facility- the place that processes collected recyclables).

The first issue with flattened cans is right off the bat when material enters the sorting line it goes through a screening process that sorts out anything less than 2 inches (this size can vary, but that’s the standard), so some crushed cans could be lost there. The second issue is the 2D/3D sort which comes right after the screens. The purpose of the 2D/3D sort is to separate fiber/paper from cans, bottles, jars, etc. and a flattened can might get swept up in the 2D (paper) line. (Here’s a video that shows the sorting process at a typical MRF.)

At the end of the day, a can is never going to show up to the MRF perfectly intact because it will get crushed a bit in the truck anyway so it’s not the end of the world if you crush your cans, but leaving them 3D to the best of your ability is definitely a best practice.

What about the little tabs?

Often when opening one of these can, the small tab on the top is completely detached. These loose pieces are too small for the recycling sorting process and they are not accepted in Pittsburgh curbside recycling. Leave the tab attached to the can to put it into curbside recycling.

The Center for Creative Reuse accepts these tabs, although they are not taking any donations as of November 2020 due to the pandemic.

You can also drop off loose tabs with your other scrap metal at a drop-off location: