Traverse City, MI
(231) 632-2272

Curbside + special pickup

Recycling for Home

At-home recycling accounts across six counties, plus special pickups for appliances, mattresses and garage clear-outs.

Call (231) 632-2272Schedule a Pickup

What goes in the bin and what ruins it

BARC repeats one rule above all the others: make sure your recycling is clean from any food waste. Clean means rinsed containers and no food scraps tucked into the paper. One wet load spoils a lot of good material, and the sorters downstream have to pull it out by hand.

On the paper side, BARC takes paperboard, newspaper, junk mail, office paper, shredded paper, cardboard and pizza boxes. On the container side it takes redemption-value plastic bottles and cans, #1 to #7 plastics, Tetra pack such as juice boxes and ice cream containers, tin steel cans, aluminum foil and non-steel metals.

Nearly 100% of what you throw away can be recycled, and BARC accepts almost anything. Make BARC your first call: if we can't recycle it we'll do our best to find someone who can. The full list lives on the what-we-recycle page, and the home account covers Grand Traverse, Antrim, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Benzie and Manistee counties.

Special pickups for the heavy and awkward

Some things will never fit in a bin. Large appliances, mattresses, a basement full of boxes and a garage clear-out all go on a special pickup. Tell the crew what is on the pile when you book, because the item list decides the truck and the price.

Special pickups are generally scheduled each Monday, and BARC cannot offer exact pickup times, so plan to have everything staged at the curb or in the garage for the whole day. The pickup fee is $100 within a 35 mile radius of both facilities, added on top of the item prices on the 2026-27 sheet.

On the same sheet, residential and commercial recycling carries a $25 start-up fee, and a 96-gallon bin is $25 per pick up. If you would rather carry it in yourself, the Traverse City drop-off at 466 US-31 South is open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 9 AM to 3 PM, from June 1, 2026 to October 31, 2026. Call to confirm winter hours.

Bags, cereal liners and the composting waitlist

The small stuff that never makes the curb has a home here too. Plastic grocery bags and cereal box liners are welcome at BARC, so keep a bag of bags by the back door and bring them along with the rest of the load.

Residential composting is at capacity for new customers right now, and the composting waitlist is open. If kitchen scraps are the reason you called, ask to be put on the list and keep the scraps out of the recycling in the meantime.

A worker in a yellow glove sorting cans and bottles on the sort line

A worker in a yellow glove sorting cans and bottles on the sort line

Not sure it can go? Call BARC at (231) 632-2272 in Traverse City, or 231-492-6138 in Kaleva.

Residential composting

Waitlist open

Full for now, with a line forming

New residential composting customers are on hold until space opens. Call (231) 632-2272 to get on the composting waitlist, and read how business composting works on the composting page.

Before you book a pickup, check item prices on the pricing sheet and have your list ready for the pickup form.

From a Google review

BARC is always great - we've had so many things we were unsure of recycling, and they always cheerfully accept it. We also love the fact that all of our plastic bags, cereal box liners, etc. can go to them for FREE! We've got stacks of grocery bags full of stuff that used to go straight to the landfill. Keep it up, BARC!

Mark VanderKlipp, Google

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