Recycling Guidelines

Single-family residents can put out extra recycling at no additional cost.

• Place extra household recyclables next to the cart in a paper bag, cardboard box, or reusable container labeled "Recycling".
• Extra cardboard boxes that won't fit in the cart can be flattened and placed next to the cart.
  

• Pieces must be smaller than 3x3x3 feet so please cut it down if any side is longer than 3 feet.
• Please don't leave extra cardboard or paper out in the rain overnight - soggy cardboard is not able to be recycled.

Apartments and condos can add more recycling capacity for no additional cost.

Apartment or condo residents can request an increase in service levels for no additional cost if recycling carts or dumpsters are often overflowing. Contact the property manager and email the request with the property name and address.

Free resources, signage, and assistance are available for multifamily property managers.

Businesses can have recycling up to 150% of trash container for no additional cost.

Contact the City to see whether your business qualifies for additional no-cost recycling.

Free resources, signage, and assistance are available for businesses.

Basic recyclables (cardboard, paper, bottles, and cans) can be recycled for free at King County's Houghton Transfer Station in the Bridle Trails neighborhood of Kirkland. Follow the King County guidelines, which may be different than Kirkland's.

• Recycle to save money. Putting recyclables in the blue cart or dumpster, generates less garbage. With less garbage, one can opt for a smaller (and cheaper) garbage service level.
• Recycling makes better use of materials because items are made into new things instead of sitting unused in the landfill for a lifetime. There are finite resources on the planet, so it makes sense to put them to good use. Recycling is part of a circular economy that reduces waste.
• The Cedar Hills landfill is on pace to fill up in ten years, and once it's full garbage will either be shipped elsewhere or processed at a waste-to-energy facility that harvests energy from burning garbage. These options will likely cost more than using our current landfill, which will increase rates.
• Recycling helps the environment. Making recycled materials uses less energy and produces less greenhouse gases, which impacts the climate. When items are made with recycled materials, fewer natural resources need to be mined or extracted from the planet. Mining and logging can pollute water, damage wildlife habitat, and contribute to climate change.
• Everyone can help to meet the community's waste reduction and recycling goals. Recycling and reducing how much waste is generated contributes to the healthy and vibrant future the community envisions.

Yes, the recycling placed in the blue cart or dumpster is getting recycled.

In 2017, China implemented a policy to reduce the amount of dirty recycling imported from the US and Europe. The cleanliness standards are challenging to meet in a system that collects materials in one "commingled" cart, since the sorting machinery is not 100% accurate. Since then, our hauler Waste Management has located new markets domestically and in North America for the recycled material coming from Kirkland. In 2023, Waste Management made significant upgrades to the Cascade Recycling Center to more efficiently sort recyclables, effectively reducing contamination.

Recyclables go to the Cascade Recycling Center in Woodinville to be sorted and eventually sold to be made into new products. The WM facility influences what's accepted in the recycling cart at home, because anything that go in the blue cart will be sorted there.

Cascade Recycling Center is a cacophonous maze of efficiency separating materials so it can be sold and turned into new goods. Recyclables are sorted by Waste Management employees and a variety technologically advanced machines. Spinning wheels float cardboard and newspapers above the stream. Suction conveyor belts separate paper from plastic bottles. Optical sorters identify bottles and cans mixed with paper. Magnets pull out steel, while an eddy current separates aluminum cans from plastic bottles.

Click here to watch it in action!

Wasting less food, and composting uneaten food, are just as important as recycling. Start or continue to compost food scraps, it's an easy and cheap way to lower a household's climate impact.

While recycling is a great way to keep materials in use as long as possible, reusing what already exists and reducing how much waste one makes is even better! Check out the reuse and waste reduction ideas for ways to waste less food, celebrate holidays with less waste, and more.

Why everything is not recyclable

Unfortunately, not everything is recyclable. The recycling system is based on economic markets. That means that businesses need to be willing to buy the used material to turn into new products. Some items aren't recyclable because:

• they cannot be sorted at the facilities,
• they're made of mixed materials that can't be separated, or
• there isn't a viable market to buy and use the material to manufacture new products. 

Recycling only the materials WM accepts in the carts is one of the most important ways to help the recycling system.

More ways to support a better recycling system

• Support legislation at the state level that raises recycled content standards, implements producer stewardship and extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs, and limits the use of hard-to-recycle items like expanded polystyrene. 
• Buy products made with post-consumer recycled content to support the market for recycled material

The City can increase service levels so there is more space to put recycling. The City provides resources like posters and tools to help residents recycle better, and offer resident education.

See our multifamily recycling toolkit and request assistance

If the WM driver sees plastic bags or other not accepted items in the recycling cart, they may not collect the recycling. They will leave an "Oops" tag on the cart explaining the problem. 

After removing the plastic bags or incorrect items, put the recycling out on the next pickup day. If there is too much recycling to fit in the cart after missing a week of pickup, put out extra materials for free. Put out extra recycling in another can or a cardboard box labeled "recycling" so the right driver gets it.

Yes, Kirkland residents and businesses should continue to recycle glass in their WM containers. In November 2024, Ardagh Glass, the major glass bottle manufacturer in Seattle, permanently closed its Seattle facility. This facility was a primary user of glass from curbside recycling programs in Puget Sound. This closure has created challenges for glass recycling for the entire region. However, WM continues to deliver all curbside glass to their recycling vendor for processing to alternative markets, such as fiberglass production. The Seattle Times published an article in early December about the closure click here to link to the article.