Can you recycle pizza boxes?
Recycling bin if clean or lightly stained; tear off greasy sections for general waste
Cardboard pizza boxes can go in your kerbside recycling as long as they are empty and not soaked in grease. Remove all leftover food and any liners, then tear off heavily greased or cheese-encrusted sections and put those in general waste. Light grease staining is fine — modern paper mills can cope with it. A whole box dripping in oil will contaminate other paper in the load.
Tips
- Tear the box in half: recycle the clean lid, bin the greasy base
- Flatten boxes so they take up less space in your bin
- Never leave crusts or dips pots inside
Which bin does it go in?
Recycling bin if clean or lightly stained; tear off greasy sections for general waste
Background: The 10 recycling mistakes that ruin lorry-loads.
Also searched as: takeaway pizza box, dominos box, cardboard food box.
✓ Checked against current UK guidance: 14 Jul 2026. Spot an error or an out-of-date rule?