Black plastic gets its color from carbon black pigment and is commonly used in food containers, such as meat or produce trays and take-out containers, as well as disposable coffee lids, plastic bags, and hard plastic items like DVD cases and planters. While plastic is one of the categories of things that we are encouraged to recycle — when we can’t reuse or repurpose it — not all black plastic items can be recycled.

Before we get into the details of recycling black plastic, here are some general recycling reminders:

• Always follow local recycling rules. Recycling programs vary by location.
• If you have questions about local recycling rules, ask your waste management provider, your town, or the place where you drop off your recycling.
• If you’re unsure whether something can be recycled, leave it out of the recycling bin. Adding items your local program doesn’t accept can cause problems and make recycling more expensive.

What Makes Black-Colored Plastic Different?

• Clear, white, and light-colored plastics are most valuable to recyclers because they can be turned into many different colors. Black plastic can only be recycled into other black items, which lowers the value of a batch.
• Some black plastic is made from electronic waste, which can contain toxic materials. This is a problem if the recycled plastic is used for food containers. A 2024 study in Chemosphere by Toxic-Free Future found flame retardants, including the banned chemical deca-BDE, in 85% of tested black plastic household items like kitchen utensils, sushi trays, and toys. These chemicals are linked to cancer, hormone problems, and developmental harm in children exposed through their mothers.
• Optical sorting machines can’t detect black items, so black plastic has to be sorted by hand, which adds work and cost for recyclers. The carbon black pigment absorbs near-infrared light, making these plastics invisible to most automated sorting systems.

Can You Put It In Your Curbside Bin?

• DON’T put black plastics in your curbside recycling bin unless your local program says they are accepted. If you can’t reuse or repurpose them, throw them in the trash.
• DO avoid buying products packaged in black plastic.
• DON’T reuse black plastic containers for food storage, since they might be contaminated with toxic chemicals from e-waste recycling.

What About Black Plastic Bags and Film Wrap?

• You can include black plastic bags, plastic film, and plastic wrap in the plastic-bag recycling at participating supermarkets and other drop-off locations. Since plastic bags and film can jam sorting machines, they are usually sorted by hand, so the color doesn’t matter. This is also why you shouldn’t put bags in your curbside bin.
• However, only drop off black plastic bags if they meet all recycling requirements: they should be stretchy, clean, and dry.

Deposit Plastic Beverage Containers

To date, there do not seem to be any black-colored plastic deposit containers (water, soda, etc.), but in case you run into some:

• Liz Philpott, public relations and BottleDrop Give program coordinator for Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, said, “All our machines and equipment can handle black plastic containers, although there aren’t many for beverages. What we probably see most of is black plastic bottle caps — which, on the plastic bottles, we can take.”
• If you use deposit-bottle reverse vending machines to return plastic bottles, the machines will accept some and reject others, depending on what they are set up to take.

Mail-In Recycling Options

There are very few mail-in programs just for black plastic food containers. TerraCycle ended its Rubbermaid black plastic container recycling program in December 2023 because processing these materials is difficult. TerraCycle does offer Zero Waste Boxes for hard-to-recycle items, but these paid programs usually cost $250 to $580 per box and don’t focus on black plastic food containers.

Some regional pickup services like Ridwell accept hard-to-recycle plastics, including some black items, but coverage is limited to specific metro areas based on local processing capabilities. Before signing up for any program, confirm they accept black plastic containers specifically; many exclude them due to the same sorting and contamination issues that affect municipal recycling.

What About “Advanced” or “Chemical” Recycling?

Chemical recycling companies have expressed interest in black plastics as feedstock since their pyrolysis processes break materials down at the molecular level, where color doesn’t matter. According to Recycling Magazine, chemical recyclers “are looking for polyethylene, and they don’t care if it has black because they break it down into a gas and convert it into oil, which is transformed into virgin plastic.”

However, these technologies remain largely unproven at scale, and consumers currently have no direct access to them. A Bain & Company analysis found that pyrolysis costs more than twice those of virgin plastic production, with 20-30 years needed to achieve cost parity. A separate report by Zero Waste Europe suggested pyrolysis may take 50 years to become commercially viable.

Some chemical recyclers are finding ways to use byproducts. In October 2025, Plastic Energy started selling TACFILLER, a char byproduct from their recycling process that can replace carbon black in making rubber, with about 89% lower emissions. While this is promising for industry, it doesn’t give consumers a way to recycle black plastics. Instead, it uses mixed plastic waste, including black plastics, as material for chemical processing.

Don’t count on chemical recycling to solve the black plastic problem anytime soon. It’s not available to consumers, economic viability remains questionable, and concerns persist about emissions and energy intensity compared to mechanical recycling.

Emerging Alternatives: NIR-Detectable Pigments

The most promising development for black plastic recycling isn’t a new recycling technology; it’s replacing carbon black pigment with alternatives that can be detected by sorting equipment.

Several companies have created NIR-reflective black pigments that keep the black look people and brands want, but also let automated sorting machines detect them. Companies like Ampacet, Cabot Corporation, and LyondellBasell have introduced black masterbatches that reflect NIR light, so recycling facilities can sort these materials properly.

In December 2025, UPM launched Circular Renewable Black, the first bio-based, carbon-negative black pigment made from lignin that can also be detected by NIR sorting equipment.

These new pigments aren’t widely used yet, but some big brands are making changes. Sam’s Club switched its rotisserie chicken containers from black to a lighter stone color to make them easier to recycle. Walgreens and SC Johnson have also changed the cap colors on some products. Reformulating packaging like this may be the most practical way to cut down on black plastic waste.

Photothermal Recycling

Researchers at Cornell and Princeton published a study in ACS Central Science in late 2024 showing a new approach: using the carbon black pigment itself to recycle black polystyrene.

This method uses visible light from LEDs or focused sunlight to start a process called photothermal conversion. The carbon black absorbs the light and creates intense heat, which breaks polystyrene down into styrene monomer. With focused sunlight, researchers converted up to 80% of the material to styrene in just five minutes. Both the carbon black and styrene can be recovered and reused.

Photothermal recycling is still just a lab experiment, not something consumers can use yet. But it shows that the same light-absorbing properties that make black plastic hard to sort might one day help with chemical recycling.

General Advice and Looking Ahead

The best thing you can do is avoid black plastics whenever you can. Tell businesses you’d rather have packaging you can recycle locally. Try to shop at places that don’t use black plastic, and instead:

• Use non-black plastic, like white coffee lids.
• Use compostable or biodegradable plastics for food trays and similar items. Keep in mind, though, that these usually need the high heat of commercial composting facilities and won’t break down in your backyard compost pile. If you have curbside compost pickup, check that your program accepts these items before putting them in your compost bin. Not all commercial composting facilities can handle them.
• Choose and support reusable options, like mugs and bags.

Given the documented toxicity concerns from e-waste contamination, replacing black plastic kitchen utensils and food containers with stainless steel, glass, or wood alternatives is a worthwhile investment for your health and the environment.

The recycling industry is getting better at detecting black plastic. Sensor technology has improved a lot in the last five years, but there’s still not much demand for recycled black plastic. As Jeff Snyder, senior vice president of recycling and sustainability at Rumpke Waste & Recycling, told Packaging Dive in 2024: “I believe I can sort it… But I also believe that the end markets don’t want it.”

Until there’s more demand and fewer contamination issues, the best solution is to stop using black plastic in single-use packaging. Look for other options when you shop and let companies know you’ll only consider their products if they don’t use this hard-to-recycle material.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on January 7, 2021 and most recently updated in January 2026. Got a question about how to recycle a specific product or type of material? Let us know, and we’ll do the research, sharing the results with the world. You can help support our work, too!