Recycle This Pittsburgh

Coloring Books & Pages

About These Items

If you have kids or work with kids, you probably have numerous coloring books of various shapes and sizes. These books, like most other books, can be recycled as mixed paper through the city’s curbside recycling pickup. It’s not a problem if they have been colored in. You can also recycle loose coloring pages. But don’t put pages covered in heavy paint into recycling and don’t include any books that are spiral-bound (unless you first remove the metal or plastic spiral). Pages or thin books with a few staples in them will not be an issue for recycling and can be included without removing the staples.

While mixed papers like coloring books are accepted curbside, it can more valuable to the city if dropped off at one of the city’s various drop-off locations. (see below)

Drop-off to increase value.

While the curbside pickup recycling is single-stream (meaning, all recyclables are combined together), starting in summer 2019 the city’s drop-off centers will collect some items in a separate pick-up and send to a separate facility for sorting and recycling. This separation reduces contamination of recyclables and increases their value. Mixed paper is one of these items now being sent (at least some of the time) to a separate facility. So if you want your mixed paper items to have the best chance of being recycled and creating the most value, consider dropping off your mixed paper at one of these drop-off locations into the city’s mixed paper dumpsters. (Note that another of these separated items is shredded paper.)

When you drop off, the items are accepted in plastic bags. However, these bags will most likely be cut open and then discarded at the sorting facility, so consider using a paper bag for mixed paper (because it can also be recycled as mixed paper) or dumping your mixed paper loose into the dumpster.