A reader called Tuesday wanting to know whether her waxed cardboard — the rectangular boxes that hold soy milk or soup stock — is recyclable in the city’s blue bins.
Short answer: No.
Ken Prue, the city of San Diego’s recycling program manager, said the city doesn’t know of any options for residents to recycle them. He wrote in an email:
Only a very small number of recycling programs on the West Coast accept these materials due to limited recycling markets for them. We would like to take these containers in the future. We are monitoring the recycling markets, and once there are multiple stable (i.e. long-term) markets for these containers, we will add them to our program.
Some other West Coast cities do encourage residents to keep waxed cardboard out of the trash can, even if it can’t go in blue bins. Seattle and Berkeley both tell residents to put things like soy milk containers in their compost bins. San Diego doesn’t have a city-wide food waste recycling program, though food is composted here on a limited basis.
The city has expanded its recycling program recently, now accepting a wide variety of plastics like yogurt cups, berry containers and lawn furniture.
Here’s our recent San Diego Explained piece on the city’s new recycling rules.
Have a recycling question? Please contact Rob Davis directly at rob.davis@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0529 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/robwdavis.