Do Shit: Making Sense Of Recycling In Reykjavík

The Útlendingur’s ongoing guide to getting shit done

For 14 years living in Reykjavík, I found myself lamenting the lack of home pick-up for sorted recycling and biowaste. So when Reykjavíkurborg began rolling out its new waste management system in 2023, I was excited. When I came home one day last summer to find a stash of paper bags for household compostable waste (along with that polarising grey-green receptacle), I was downright eager.

This all goes back to July, 2021, when Parliament passed a law that went into effect on January 1, 2023, stipulating that every household needs receptacles for three different categories by their house. So that’s food waste, plastics and paper — that’s what’s legally mandated.

I read through the pamphlet accompanying the new bins that had been rolled up outside my home, ready to begin my new life of responsible waste management. Buy when my kids finished their first TetraPak of juice, the confusion began to set in. It’s paper, lined with metal and plastic, with a plastic spout and lid. Where does this go? If I throw it in the general direction of my bins, will it simply hover in midair, existing outside the laws of physics just as it seems to exist outside the rules of recycling?

Knowing I’m not alone in my sporadic confusion about the still-new system, I turned to Gunnar Dofri Ólafsson from the SORPA waste management and recycling centre for some clarification.

Back to the beginning

“This all goes back to July, 2021, when Parliament passed a law that went into effect on January 1, 2023, stipulating that every household needs receptacles for three different categories by their house,” Gunnar Dorfi explains. “So that’s food waste, plastics and paper — that’s what’s legally mandated. But you can’t really get by without also having mixed waste, so we went with four different types of waste bins for every home.”

The legislation and eventual city-wide roll-out was a boon for SORPA, who had been struggling to access “clean” enough waste to feed into its gas and compost operation GAJA. “The input material that we were sorting from the mixed waste to feed GAJA wasn’t clean enough,” Gunnar Dofri tells me. “The compost turned out to be polluted with plastics and glass in particular. So for us to get separated food waste into GAJA was a godsend.”

GAJA is a sister operation of SORPA. It takes all our compostable waste and transforms it into methane gas and compost. So, essentially, we’re paying GAJA to take our garbage and we pay them to get it back in the form of gas and nutrient-rich soil. What a time to be alive.

Lightning round

But back to the matter at hand: seeking to set the record straight on the correct bins to toss certain everyday items, I challenged Gunnar Dorfi to a lightning round, recycling edition. Here’s what he said:

Empty glass containers (not beverage bottles) go in the glass bin at your neighbourhood recycling station.

Glass and plastic beverage bottles can be returned to Endurvinnslan for cold hard cash.

Metal lids from containers go in the metal bin at your neighbourhood recycling station.

Fernas, like TetraPak cartons that are simultaneously paper, plastic and metal in one can be put right in the paper recycling bin. There is no need to separate the plastic spout or lid. Chuck the whole thing in the blue bin outside your home. Seriously, Gunnar Dofri said so.

Pizza boxes can also go right into the paper recycling bin. Just be sure to eat the pizza first, of course.

All food waste, including bones and coffee grounds, go into the paper compost bags inside your home and then into the food waste bin outside your home.

Blister packs that once contained medication should be taken back to the pharmacy for disposal. The same goes for empty pill bottles and any unused medication.

Do paper labels have to be removed from glass or plastic containers? Gunnar says “no.”

How clean do glass, metal or plastic containers have to be before being tossed in their respective bins? “Just clean enough that they won’t start to smell after a few days,” Gunnar says.

Every recyclable is shipped overseas to be processed. The most important category from SORPA’s point of view is food waste, so be sure to do the best job sorting that in your home so GAJA can reap the benefits of your sweet, sweet trash.

While SORPA is responsible for receiving your waste, the city is responsible for picking it up. So if your bins aren’t being emptied or they’re being flagged as not properly sorted, that’s an issue you’ll have to take up directly with Reykjavíkurborg.

Crystal clear, right?

Follow along with our Do Shit series. Is there an aspect of Icelandic bureaucracy or society that you’d like clarification about? Email us at grapevine[at]grapevine.is and we might just look into it.