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Check whether your local program accepts glass jars and whether it excludes mason or candle jars. If accepted, scrape and rinse the jar, remove the lid, and leave the label on. Put the lid in recycling only if your program accepts that material; commercial food jars are not designed for home canning. Before you go, confirm that a local recycling center accepts the material in its current condition.
- Recycling route
- Check locally
Sauce, pickle, jam, condiment, and baby food jars. Identical glass to bottles, with lids, wax, and canning reuse as the questions that come up.
Where to Recycle
- Curbside recycling where glass is accepted
- Glass-only drop-off bins
- Municipal recycling centers and transfer stations
- Buy Nothing groups and home canners, for intact canning jars
How to Prepare
- 1Check whether your program takes glass, and whether it excludes mason or candle jars specifically
- 2Scrape out food and rinse; clean enough not to smell, not surgically clean
- 3Unscrew metal lids and rings and put them loose in with metals, never left on the jar
- 4Leave labels on, since they burn off during melting
- 5Get wax out of candle jars before recycling, or put the jar in the trash if you cannot
- 6Keep chipped or cracked jars out of the bin and set intact ones aside if you want to reuse them
- 7Ignore on-pack labels telling you to replace the lid, since municipal glass rules override them
Special Instructions
The lid is the part people get wrong. Metal lids and rings are recyclable, but as loose metal rather than attached to glass, because a sealed jar reads as one object to sorting equipment. Plastic lids, liners, and gaskets generally are not recyclable. Watch for a conflict here: on-pack How2Recycle instructions sometimes say to replace the lid before recycling, which contradicts most municipal glass rules, and your local program wins. Acceptance is also narrower than people assume for two specific jar types. Cuyahoga County, for instance, explicitly excludes mason jars and candle jars from curbside collection, so a jar being glass does not guarantee your program wants it. Candle jars carry residual wax, which is a contaminant, so either clean the wax out fully or bin the jar.
Environmental Impact
Jars are the same soda-lime container glass as bottles, so the same economics apply: remelting is endlessly repeatable, each 10 percent of cullet in a furnace saves about 2 to 3 percent of its energy, and the Glass Packaging Institute estimates a ton of CO2 avoided per 6 tons of container glass recycled. Reuse beats recycling here more clearly than for most materials, because a sturdy jar with a working lid can replace bought food storage for years. Reuse has a limit, though: the National Center for Home Food Preservation advises against reusing commercial food jars for home canning, because they are not built for repeated processing and break at excessive rates in pressure canners. Genuine Ball and Mason canning jars are made for it and are the exception.
Sustainable Alternatives
- Reuse for dry goods, leftovers, and meal prep
- Give intact canning jars to a home canner or Buy Nothing group
- Use as drinking glasses, vases, or desk organizers
- Melt out candle wax and reuse the jar for a new candle
Official guidance and resources
Accepted items and drop-off rules can vary by location. Check the destination before you go.
What’s Accepted
Accepted
- Sauce, pickle, jam, jelly, and baby food jars
- Condiment jars from mustard, mayonnaise, and spices
- Glass cosmetic and cream jars
- Instant coffee and nut butter jars
- Canning jars, though some programs exclude them, so check locally
Not Accepted
- Jars with metal lids or rings still attached
- Candle jars with wax still in them
- Mason and candle jars in programs that exclude them, such as Cuyahoga County
- Jars with food or mold left inside
- Broken or cracked jars
- Drinking glasses, Pyrex, and other non-container glass
FAQs
Do metal lids go on the jar or separately?
Separately, and loose. Take the lid and ring off and put the metal in with other metals; a lid left screwed on will not be sorted correctly. Plastic lids, liners, and gaskets normally go in the trash. If the package tells you to replace the lid before recycling, follow your municipal program instead, since those on-pack instructions frequently conflict with local rules.
How clean does a jar need to be?
Clean enough that it does not smell or attract pests, not spotless. Scrape the solids out and rinse. Sticky residue in a bin causes real problems at a facility; a faint film does not. Do not run jars through a hot wash cycle for recycling's sake, since the water and energy outweigh the benefit.
Can I reuse pasta sauce jars for canning?
For dry storage and refrigerator use, yes. For actual home canning, no. The National Center for Home Food Preservation advises against reusing commercial food jars for canning because they are not designed for repeated heat processing and break at excessive rates in pressure canners. Use jars made for canning, such as Ball or Mason, which are built for it.
What do I do with candle jars?
Get the wax out first, since residual wax is a contaminant. Freezing the jar usually makes the wax pop loose, or you can warm it and wipe it out. Then check your local rules, because some programs exclude candle jars entirely regardless of how clean they are. If the wax will not come out, the jar goes in the trash.
Are jars worth more than bottles to recycle?
No, they are the same material and the same value. Color matters more than shape: clear flint glass is the most useful because color cannot be removed once it is in the melt. Both bottles and jars face the same collection problem, where glass gathered separately becomes new products far more often than glass thrown into a mixed cart.
Recycle glass jars
Search recycling centers by city or ZIP, or explore more glass materials.