If your family wants to start recycling, go for it. You don’t have to overthink how to recycle, make your own DIY recycling bins that suit your recycling style and start!
While some people are lucky enough to live in communities with curbside recycling services, I’m not. I hope it becomes something my town offers eventually, but for now we have to store our recyclable items until we can take them to the nearest center.
Depending on your home’s layout and your recycling needs, figuring out what type of bins to use can be a bit tricky.
How to Plan Your Home Recycling Center
Space and Location – First, you’ll want to decide where your bins will be located. Be sure to choose a spot that’s easy to get to and one that will be easy for your family to use.
If you make it difficult on yourself to sort your recyclables or store them, you’ll be less likely to stick with the eco-friendly activity.
The most common locations and home recycling stations are:
- Kitchen Recycling Bins – I have lots of ideas below on where to store your recycling bins in your kitchen and use the space that you already have.
- Indoor Recycling Bins – Your kitchen may not always be the best place for recycling bins. Think outside the kitchen by using your laundry room or other indoor area with space.
- Garage Recycling Storage – A garage location is a great way to keep larger recycling bins out of sight.
- Outdoor Recycling Bins – While this may seem like the best option, just make sure that it works for your whole family to use.
At my house, we actually utilized kitchen recycling bins. When we first moved into this house in 2015, my husband built a pull-out double trash can into existing cabinets. Here are similar plans as to how we made ours.
It works out great as we put our trash in one side and recyclables in the other. We put all the recyclables together and then when it’s full, take them to our outdoor bins for sorting.
What you can recycle – It’s also important to know what you can recycle where you live. In some small towns and cities, you can only recycle glass or paper. Depending on what your city will take in recycling will impact what type of DIY recycling bins you will have.
Recycle Bin Labels – Be sure to label your recycling bins at home so your family can easily sort as you go. You don’t want to have to pull recyclables out of the trash – if your bins are labeled, your family will find the process easier.
Get the whole family involved – Teaching kids to reduce reuse recycle is so important. I encourage you to get your children involved with recycling at home. Let them help you make your home’s recycling bins to get them excited. I’ve got some great, kid-friendly DIY recycling bin ideas below!

Here are a few of my favorite ideas that I’ve found for making your own DIY recycling bins.
25 DIY Recycling Bins You Can Make
These wooden recycling bins are so pretty - they would look great no matter where you put them in your house.
This full tutorial from HGTV gives you all the info you need to make a full outdoor recycling center at your home.
Check out how you can turn a laundry sorter into a recycling bin with this DIY.
I'm completely in love with these stylish recycling bins. The color and the fact that you can open a small spot in the top of each bin, making them super functional, would make them look great sitting anywhere in your home.
Check out this transformation - turn an old filing cabinet into a recycling bin holder.
I'm obsessed with this outdoor recycling center with a garden planter on the top - what a great way to utilize all the space and keep outdoor recycling bins covered and hidden. While this for sale on Etsy, you could always DIY yourself if you're handy!
Turn a mess of baskets and storage bins into a colorful recycling station!
These metal cans are too pretty to hold trash - that's why they hold recycling items!
This shelf with plastic totes is marketed as toy storage, but it converts easily to DIY recycling bins.
This is a great read on how to recycle cartons utilizing smaller plastic bins as recyclables storage.
If you’re like me and have to take your recyclables to a center, why not go ahead and store them in bags? If you have the space, this idea is perfect.
Here's another take on an outdoor recycling center.
Recycling bins often take up a lot of room, but if you get creative, you can recycle and keep your space too. I love these bins that hang on the wall of your garage. It looks like a rather easy project to DIY with these instructions.
Here's another vertical storage option for garage recycling bins. This one utilizes a peg board storage system.
There's no better way to get kids excited about recycling than having a fun recycling station with lots of bright colors!
What a genius storage hack! If you have a cabinet lazy susan in your kitchen, you can put your recycling bins there. Out of sight and easy to sort.
Lots of ideas for recycling bins here - I love these clear containers to easily see how full the bins are.
Build your own wooden recycling bin! This site has all the plans for you to make your own.
This is a fun vertical storage system made out of regular plastic totes with holes cut out for easy recycling.
Check out these great bins from IKEA. They come with lids and are stackable. While this might not be total DIY, these bins are a great addition to any home recycling station.
Another idea to get kids involved is to let them make recycle bin labels.
Remember those rolling cart cabinets that you have? Convert them to recycling bins! Laura shows you how in this blog post plus offers free printable labels too!
This is a super simple DIY recycling bins setup that utilizes plastic garage shelving and Rubbermaid totes. The lids help keep everything organized and clean.
Being a cat mom, this idea gets me excited. Those cat litter buckets are so sturdy - I'm glad to see a way to repurpose them when it comes to recycling too!
These plans to build an outdoor recycling bin use mainly pallet wood.
Love this IKEA hack storage to turn an IKEA cabinet into a recycling center for your home.
I hope you found some great inspiration to get you started with recycling in your home with these 25 DIY Recycling Bin ideas.
Are you looking to live a green-er lifestyle? Check out these posts too!
- How To Recycle Cartons
- 5 Ways to Reuse K-Cups
- How to Reuse Food Scraps to Add Compost in Soil for Improved Growth
- 6 Easy Ways to Go Green in Your Bathroom
- The ULTIMATE List of DIY Natural Homemade Cleaners
This post was originally published in September 2017.
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Monday 28th of August 2023
Thats very informative and useful information for us.Thanks for sharing this post.Great blog!