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Paper coffee cups
🗑️
In Calgary, put this in the
Black cart — Garbage
The waxed/plastic-lined cup goes in the black cart. The cardboard sleeve can be recycled in the blue cart and the lid goes in the black cart.
Also searched as: coffee cup, tim hortons cup, starbucks cup, disposable cup.
Why the black cart?
Takeaway cups look like paper but are lined with polyethylene plastic so they don’t leak — a bonded laminate Calgary’s recycling stream can’t split apart. That’s why the cup itself is garbage even though the sleeve is perfectly recyclable.
Get it right
- Split the trio every time: sleeve to blue, cup and plastic lid to black.
- Don’t put cups in the green cart either — the plastic lining doesn’t compost.
- A reusable mug sidesteps the whole problem, and most Calgary coffee shops give a small discount for bringing one.
Related items
♻️ Shredded paper♻️ Magazines and catalogues♻️ Envelopes♻️ Office paper🌿 Paper towel and napkins♻️ Wrapping paper
Know your pickup days too
Look up your black, blue and green cart collection schedule by address.
Find my collection day