How to Recycle Glass Bottles
Beer, wine, spirits, and beverage bottles in clear, amber, and green glass. The core of container recycling, and the only glass with a genuine bottle-to-bottle loop.
Quick answer
Empty them, take the caps off, and leave the labels alone. Bottles are the one glass product with a real recycling loop, though whether your city collects them varies more than for any other material. In the ten deposit states plus Guam a bottle is worth 5 or 10 cents back, which recovers far more glass than curbside does.
- Recyclable
- Yes
- 1Check first whether your program still takes glass, since a number have dropped it from curbside
- 2Empty the bottle completely and give it a quick rinse
- 3Take off metal and plastic caps, corks, and neck rings, and recycle metal caps loose with metals
- 4Leave labels on; they burn off in the furnace and are not worth peeling
- 5Sort by color only if your program asks, which most single-stream programs do not
- 6Keep broken bottles out of the bin and put them in the trash, contained
- 7In a deposit state, take deposit-bearing bottles to a redemption point rather than the curb
- Curbside recycling where glass is still accepted
- Glass-only drop-off bins
- Bottle redemption centers and reverse vending machines in deposit states
- Municipal recycling centers and transfer stations
- Grocery store drop-offs
Caps, corks, and neck rings belong in a different stream than the glass. Metal caps are recyclable loose with other metals, plastic caps and corks generally are not. The deposit system is worth using where it exists, because it collects glass separately and separately collected glass is worth far more: roughly 90 percent of it becomes new products, against about 40 percent of glass collected in single-stream carts. Ten states plus Guam operate deposits, and two changed recently, with Connecticut raising its deposit from 5 to 10 cents on January 1, 2024 and California adding wine and spirits bottles the same day. Be skeptical of claims that deposit states recover nearly all their bottles; Container Recycling Institute data puts real redemption across those states somewhere between roughly 35 and 87 percent.
Container glass is genuinely circular in a way most recycled materials are not, since it can be remelted repeatedly without degrading. The energy benefit is incremental rather than dramatic: each 10 percent of cullet added to a furnace cuts its energy use by about 2 to 3 percent, so a fully cullet-fed furnace saves on the order of 20 to 30 percent. The Glass Packaging Institute puts raw material displacement at roughly 1,300 pounds of sand, 410 of soda ash, 380 of limestone, and 160 of feldspar per ton recycled, and estimates a ton of CO2 avoided for every 6 tons of container glass recycled. What varies most is collection: a bottle put in a glass-only bin has a far better chance of becoming another bottle than one thrown into a mixed cart, where it shatters, contaminates the paper, and often ends up as landfill cover.
- Reuse as storage containers
- Upcycle into decorative items
- Return to wineries for refilling
- Use for home brewing
Accepted
- Beer and wine bottles (all colors)
- Beverage bottles (soda, juice, water)
- Liquor and spirits bottles
- Cooking wine and vinegar bottles
Not Accepted
- Bottles with caps or lids attached
- Window glass or mirrors (different melting point)
- Drinking glasses or glassware (different composition)
- Light bulbs or fluorescent tubes
- Pyrex or heat-resistant glass cookware
- Bottles with food or liquid left in them
Do I need to remove labels from glass bottles?
No. Labels burn off in the furnace and facilities handle them routinely. Peeling them is wasted effort, and soaking bottles to remove labels wastes more water than it saves anything.
Why can't I leave the caps on?
Caps are a different material with a different melting behavior, so they have to leave the glass stream. Metal caps are recyclable, but loose with other metals rather than screwed onto the bottle, where sorting equipment cannot see them. Plastic caps and corks generally are not recyclable at all.
Do I need to separate glass by color?
Usually not. Most single-stream programs take mixed colors, and some glass-only drop-offs sort colors themselves. Color matters downstream rather than at your curb: clear flint glass is the most useful because color cannot be removed once it is in the melt, so mixed cullet can only become colored or non-container products.
Why are glass recycling programs disappearing in some areas?
Because in a mixed cart glass costs more than it returns. It is heavy to haul, it shatters in the truck, the shards contaminate paper and cardboard bales, and the fragments abrade sorting equipment. Fairfax County, Virginia stopped accepting glass curbside on October 1, 2019 and told residents to use glass-only bins or the trash, and Albuquerque leaves glass out of its blue cart. The replacement model is glass-only drop-off, which produces far cleaner material.
What actually happens to the glass I put in the bin?
It depends almost entirely on how it was collected. Chemical and Engineering News reports about 40 percent of single-stream glass becomes new products, against roughly 90 percent of separately collected glass. A 2018 survey of Northeast sorting facilities found 54 percent of glass went to processors while 38 percent went to landfill as daily cover, fill, or trash. There is no national end-use breakdown, so treat any single tidy percentage with suspicion.
Is it worth returning bottles for the deposit?
Yes, and it is the single most effective thing you can do with a bottle. Ten states plus Guam run deposit systems at 5 or 10 cents a container, and they recover far more glass than curbside because the material arrives clean and separated. Oregon and California recover roughly 65 and 58 percent of residential glass containers, while several non-deposit states sit between 1 and 3 percent.
Recycling centers that accept Glass Bottles
RecycleFind lists recycling centers that accept glass bottles. Open a listing for hours, contact info, and directions.