Recycle This Pittsburgh

Glass Jars & Bottles

About These Items

Many common food or household products come in these glass jars or bottles. While glass is 100% recyclable, the reality is that it can be more expensive to process, especially in single-stream recycling programs in use in much of PA today (including here in the city of Pittsburgh). Broken glass can contaminate other recyclables or cause issues for the processing machinery or workers. This is why some areas surrounding Pittsburgh have stopped accepting glass as part of their curbside recycling. At this time glass is still accepted for curbside pickup in the City of Pittsburgh’s recycling program.

The metal lids that typically come with these jars are not accepted curbside. (Find how to recycle these below.)

If you can remove labels from the glass containers, that’s great, but don’t worry too much because during the recycling process the items are re-washed, crushed, and any non-glass objects are removed. (Too many lids will contaminate the load so, while labels are ok, always remember to remove the lids!) 

You can also drop glass items off at the city’s various drop-off locations. Typically at these locations, although glass is placed in its own dumpster, it is combined with paper and plastic dumpsters when picked up to be taken to the recycling processor. However, during the summer and fall of 2019, the city is piloting a drop-off program at 3 drop-off locations that will keep glass separate from other materials, reducing contamination and increasing the value of the collected items. See below for more on this pilot program.

Drop off to increase value and support more sustainable multi-stream recycling.

While the curbside pickup recycling is single-stream (meaning, all recyclables are combined together), starting in summer 2019 some of 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. The city is piloting a drop-off program for glass as part of this effort. Look for the lime-green dumpsters at the Construction Junction, Knoxville, and Strip District drop-off locations. This pilot is set to run through November 2019, though the city has expressed interest in extending it and with the city’s recycling contract up for renegotiation for 2020, it is quite possible curbside glass collection will be changing next year.

Drop metal caps off at scrap metal collection locations.

The metal jar lids and bottle caps that typically come on glass jars and bottles can not be placed in curbside recycling. Instead they should be taken to a scrap metal collection point. There is a public scrap metal bin outside the building entrance to Construction Junction.