Household recycling
How to Recycle Books
Paperbacks, hardcovers, textbooks, and reference books. One of the few household materials that genuinely recycles as paper, with a hardcover exception people usually get wrong.
RecyclableUpdated Jul 2026
Quick answer
Paperbacks go in curbside paper recycling whole. Hardcovers do not: the rigid boards and spine have to come off first and go in the trash, and a hardcover you cannot strip belongs in the garbage rather than the bin. Donate anything still readable, and note that Better World Books takes drop-offs but its donations are not tax-deductible.
- Recyclable
- Yes
How to Prepare
- 1Offer readable books to a library sale, thrift store, or Little Free Library before recycling anything
- 2Put paperbacks and phone books in curbside paper recycling whole
- 3Tear the rigid covers and spine off a hardcover and bin those, recycling only the inner pages
- 4
