Food Storage Containers
Recyclable?
Blue Bins & Chutes
Other Recycling
Recommended
Freecycle / Give Away
Many people freecycle or even sell used food storage containers online
Carousell
Olio
Share Our Plastic
Online Freecycle Groups
GoodHood
Singapore Really Really Free Market
Alternative
Recycling Bins & Chutes
Does the number indicate it is recyclable?
Make sure it is clean. If it has a silicone rubber seal, discard the seal.
Blue Bins
Alternative
Trash
If it is dirty, just throw it in the trash. If it is clean, re-use it!
It may not be worth the soap and water to clean it for the recycling bins.
And this is really one of the more complicated items to try recycle. Don't feel bad throwing it out. Even at the best of times, the chance of it getting recycled is low.
General Waste
Info & Insights
Unfortunately, these containers can be made of recyclable plastic or non-recyclable plastic.
You will need to check the plastic resin numbers on the package:
The most common numbers you will see on such containers are:
Most common:
- #5 Polypropylene aka PP - recyclable
Others:
- #1 PET - recyclable
- #2 HDPE - recyclable
- #4 LDPE - recyclable
- #7 others - not recyclable
And sometimes there is no number at all which means it is not recyclable.
Some brands have proprietary blends of plastic which are not recyclable in local recycling systems (eg rubbermaid).
And to make it even more complicated, the lid may not be the same kind of plastic. The lids rarely have a resin number and have to be thrown away.
Even for those recyclable plastics, the recycling rates tend to be very low. Only about 1% of PP is recycled globally because there is very low demand for this kind of post-consumer plastic in the 2nd hand market. LDPE is even lower.
