Prost to the Planet: How to Recycle Your Beer Right

Oktoberfests may be wrapping up around the world, but here in Colorado, beer season never really ends. Whether you’re filling a growler at your neighborhood brewery or cracking open a six-pack at home, what you do with the packaging makes a real difference for the planet.

If you love your beer and love protecting natural resources by keeping waste out of the landfill, read on to find out what to do with every type of beer packaging—from bottles and cans to cardboard carriers and hard-plastic toppers.

How to make sure your beer containers are recycled into another round:

Go Reusable When You Can

If your local brewery refills growlers or offers reusable bottles, start there! Reusable and refillable containers are the best choice of all—no new materials or remanufacturing—just clean, refill, and repeat! And most refills are often cheaper since you’re not paying for new packaging.

Recycle Your Glass Bottles

Glass is one of the few materials that can be recycled infinitely. And here in Boulder County, the bottles you recycle stay close to home—they’re sent to Glass to Glass in Denver for processing, and then to Rocky Mountain Bottling, where they’re turned back into new beer bottles.

• Empty: Please be sure to empty all beer and beverage containers to avoid getting liquids onto paper in the single-stream mix.

• Labels: No need to remove the labels on glass bottles.

• Caps: The metal caps on your beer bottle can be trickier to recycle in your curbside recycling bin because of their small size—they can fall through screens and end up in the glass where they don’t belong. The best choice for making sure small metal beer caps get recycled is to collect them and bring them to a scrap metal collection drop-off site, such as the Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHaRM) or the Longmont Recycling Center for Longmont residents.

• Paperboard carrier: The paperboard carrier that holds glass bottles can be placed in your curbside recycling bin.

Recycle Aluminum Cans

Aluminum is another material that can be recycled again and again without losing quality, and it’s very valuable as a recycling commodity. An aluminum can you put in your curbside recycling bin today could be back on store shelves within six weeks!

• Empty: Again, all containers should be free of liquids and food.

• Cans with labels printed directly on the can: These cans go straight into your curbside recycling bin—no prep needed.

• Cans with plastic shrink sleeves, wraps, or peel-off plastic labels:  For smaller batches of beer, printing directly on the can can be cost-prohibitive. Instead, labels are printed on plastic that gets wrapped around or stuck to the can. If you can safely remove this label (many wrap-around labels now have perforated seams for easy removal that does not require scissors, and some plastic sticker labels have an adhesive backing designed for peeling off), please remove them before recycling so optical sorters designed to pick up plastic don’t “misread” the can as a plastic item and sort it incorrectly. Note: Paper labels do not need to be removed.

• Hard-top plastic four-pack and six-pack holders (with snap-on toppers): In Boulder County, these are recyclable in your curbside recycling bin. However, flexible plastic holders are not recyclable and should be put in the trash.

• Paperboard boxes: Cases of beer often come in paperboard boxes that are recyclable—simply flatten and put it right in your curbside bin.

Skip the Plastic Cups

Those red or clear plastic party cups? Unfortunately, they can’t be recycled curbside in Boulder County and end up in the landfill. Bring a reusable cup or stein to gatherings when you can, or drink directly from recyclable beverage packaging.

Keep It Local

Buying beer from local Colorado breweries helps close the recycling loop right here at home. Both your glass bottles and aluminum cans are recycled regionally, cutting down on transportation emissions and supporting circular economies in our state. 

Whether it’s Oktoberfest or any weekend get-together, make every “prost!” a toast to the planet. Choose reusables first, recycle right, and raise your glass (or can) to a Colorado recycling system that gives your beer containers another round!