Sorting your waste and recycling

Sorting your rubbish is not optional in Luxembourg. The law says households have to use the separate collections their commune offers, and the commune can refuse to empty a bin with the wrong things in it. The good news: once you know the five or six streams, it’s easy, and it usually makes your bin bill smaller.

Every commune does this a little differently. The colours, the days, and who may use which recycling centre are set locally. Use this page for the general picture, then check your own commune (the app below makes that quick).

The short version

• Grey or black bin: whatever is left over and can’t be recycled.
• Blue Valorlux bag: plastic packaging, metal packaging and drinks cartons. Collected every two weeks.
• Blue bin (or paper container): clean paper and cardboard.
• Green bin or bottle bank: glass bottles and jars only.
• Brown bin: food and kitchen scraps (and, in many communes, garden waste).
• SuperDrecksKëscht (SDK): anything dangerous: batteries, paint, medicines, aerosols with a danger symbol, light bulbs.
• Resource centre (centre de ressources, Ressourcenzenter, often still called the recycling centre): everything else, from old furniture and scrap metal to electrical goods, wood and textiles.
• Your collection days: the free app Mäin Offall – Meng Ressourcen, or your commune’s website.

Which bin is which

The colours below are the usual ones. The official leaflet from the Administration de l’environnement calls the residual bin “grey/black”, and Luxembourg City uses both words on its own pages. A SIDEC commune regulation sets blue for paper, green for glass, brown for biowaste and grey for mixed household waste. If your bin looks different, your commune’s page wins. Colours really do change from place to place: Bettembourg’s bin order form, for example, lists brown for glass and green for organic waste, the other way round from the usual pattern.

Stream	Usual container	Goes in	Stays out
Residual waste	Grey or black bin	Nappies, wet wipes and hygiene products, cat litter, cigarette butts, ash, hoover bags, paper cups and plastic-coated paper plates	Anything that has its own collection: paper, glass, packaging, food waste, anything hazardous
Packaging (PMC)	Blue Valorlux bag	Plastic bottles, pots, cups, trays, plastic films and bags, cans, metal lids and trays, drinks cartons	Black plastic, crisp and coffee bags and other multi-layer packs, Styrofoam, coffee capsules, paper, glass, anything with a danger symbol (see below)
Paper and cardboard	Blue bin or paper container	Newspapers, magazines, catalogues, books, exercise books, cardboard boxes, envelopes	Greasy or dirty paper (a soaked pizza box), drinks cartons (those go in the blue bag), wallpaper, waxed or plastic-coated paper, tissues
Glass	Green bin or bottle bank	Empty bottles and jars, without caps or lids	Window glass, mirrors, Pyrex and other oven glass, ceramics, porcelain, light bulbs
Food and kitchen waste	Brown bin	Raw and cooked food, including meat and fish, fruit and vegetable peel, bread, coffee grounds, tea bags, eggshells	Any plastic bag, including “compostable” or “biodegradable” ones, cat litter, ash, nappies, oil and fat, coffee capsules

The blue Valorlux bag

Valorlux runs the national packaging collection. The bag is free and is picked up every two weeks.

• Get bags from your commune, order a roll on the Valorlux website (delivered to your letterbox within about ten working days), or order online and collect at a partner petrol station.
• Empty, don’t wash. Packaging has to be empty, but Valorlux says there’s no need to rinse it, and certainly not in the dishwasher. Flatten it and don’t stack items inside each other.
• Up to 5 litres per item.
• Caps can stay on plastic bottles.
• Plastic films and bags are allowed now (pasta bags, for example). Crisp, coffee and pet-food bags are not, because they’re made of several layers.
• No black plastic. The sorting machines can’t see it.
• Danger symbols: packaging with a GHS hazard symbol goes to the SuperDrecksKëscht. The one exception is the symbol with an exclamation mark (laundry liquid, for example), once the bottle is empty. A spray can with no hazard symbol (deodorant, cream) can go in the bag when empty.
• Medicine packaging that still has medicine in it, and syringes, go to the SuperDrecksKëscht.
• Put the bag out where it can be seen. The Valorlux guide published by communes says by 6:00 at the latest on collection day.

Valorlux also has a web app for the blue-bag dates and a helpdesk on +352 37 00 06 1.

Glass and bottle banks

Glass bottles and jars go in your green bin if your commune has one (Luxembourg City collects glass weekly) or in a public bottle bank. Take off caps and lids. The City also asks you to rinse them.

Bottle banks have hours. They’re noisy, so communes limit when you may use them. In the SIDEC communes the hours are printed on the container, and using it outside those hours isn’t allowed. Remich’s police regulation bans it between 22:00 and 7:00. Look at the sticker before you go, and avoid late evenings and Sundays unless the sticker says otherwise.

If a container is full, don’t leave anything next to it. That’s banned (Luxembourg City files a complaint for every illegal dump). Try another container or the resource centre.

Food and garden waste

Biowaste has to be collected separately by law, and communes collect it at your door, usually in a brown bin. You can line it with newspaper or a paper bag. Plastic bags of any kind, “biodegradable” ones included, are not allowed. In Luxembourg City only the brown bins supplied by the City are emptied.

Garden waste: many communes take it in the brown bin or collect it separately, and resource centres accept green waste. In the SIDEC area you need a SIDEC client card to drop off green waste or collect compost.

Hazardous waste: the SuperDrecksKëscht

The SuperDrecksKëscht fir Bierger (SDK) takes household amounts of dangerous products, free of charge. That includes batteries, paint, varnish and solvents, light bulbs and tubes, medicines and syringes (in its safety box), cosmetics, pesticides and fertilisers, cleaning products, aerosols, used cooking oil, motor oil, small household gas bottles, fire extinguishers, small electrical appliances, and data media such as CDs.

How to get rid of them:

• Mobile collection, four times a year in every commune. Either the SDK van comes past your door (put the box out on the morning of the collection, before 7:00, not the night before, and seal it so children and pets can’t get in), or there’s a collection point in the commune, usually from 7:30. Dates are on sdk.lu, in your commune’s calendar and in the Mäin Offall app.
• At a resource centre, which has an SDK corner.
• Moving house or clearing a home? For larger amounts, SDK will come out on request: +352 48 82 16-1 or info@sdk.lu.

The SDK doesn’t take bulky waste or Styrofoam.

Old appliances, bulky items and scrap metal

What Germans call Sperrmüll is déchets encombrants here: furniture, mattresses, carpets and other things too big for your bin. Communes handle it, each in its own way. You’ll usually have a choice between a pick-up at home and taking it to the resource centre yourself.

Two examples:

• Luxembourg City collects bulky items on request for €20 for up to 100 kg, then €0.20 a kg, usually within 5 working days. It also collects garden waste, wood and scrap metal on request. Email hygiene@vdl.lu or call 4796-3640. Put things out from 18:00 the evening before, no earlier.
• Dalheim takes bulky waste at its resource centre on Saturdays for €10 a cubic metre, or collects it at home for €10 a cubic metre plus €50, up to 3 m³ per household.

Electrical and electronic goods (fridges, TVs, computers, phones, small appliances) are collected through Ecotrel, the official scheme, working with the SDK, communes, resource centres and shops. Small appliances can go to the SDK. Large ones go to the resource centre or a commune collection.

The resource centre

There are about 25 resource centres in Luxembourg. Valorlux keeps the list. They take what your bins don’t, for example bulky items, electrical goods, Styrofoam (collected separately) and hazardous products for the SDK. The exact list differs from centre to centre. Valorlux says that since 2024 all resource centres use the same simplified sorting.

Who may use one, and what you need, depends on the centre. Some examples:

Centre	Who can use it	What you need	Opening hours
Luxembourg City, rue du Stade	Residents of the City and Strassen only. Free	Personal access card, 18+, made on the spot with your ID and social security number	Mon–Fri 7:00–19:30, Sat 8:30–18:00 (last entry 15 minutes before). Bulky items under 1 m³ only
STEP Dudelange/Bettembourg and STEP Tétange/Rumelange	Residents of the STEP communes (Bettembourg, Dudelange, Kayl, Roeser, Rumelange)	A STEP card. In Dudelange you get it at the citizens’ office in the town hall	Tue–Fri 10:00–18:00, Sat 8:00–16:00. Closed Monday, Sunday, public holidays, 24 and 31 December
SIDEC (Diekirch, Mersch, Redange, Lentzweiler)	Residents of SIDEC communes	A SIDEC client card for green waste and compost, and to drop some paid items free	See sidec.lu
Dalheim	Any resident of Luxembourg	—	Tue, Thu and Sat 13:30–16:30 (closed 24–31 Dec 2026); bulky waste on Saturdays

Do you need a car? Usually, in practice. The centres are mostly drive-in sites on the edge of town. If you don’t drive:

• Ask for your commune’s on-request collection (Luxembourg City, for example).
• Some communes run their own service. Dudelange’s Recycling-Taxi is for people with reduced mobility, and other households can use it up to 5 times a year with a €12 booklet of vouchers (appointments on 516121-9810). It takes textiles, screens, appliances and IT equipment.
• In some communes you can book an on-demand collection in the Mäin Offall app, if your commune offers it there.

Finding your collection days

• Mäin Offall – Meng Ressourcen, the free app from the Administration de l’environnement (iPhone and Android, in 4 languages). It covers more than 88 communes. You enter your address (or several) and get the calendar, reminders the day before, notices when a collection moves, a map of bottle banks and resource centres, and an A–Z waste dictionary.
• Your commune’s website. Luxembourg City has a calendar by street, and its cityapp – VDL shows upcoming collections.
• Valorlux’s web app for blue-bag days.

Collections often move around public holidays, so turn the reminders on.

Paying for it, and putting bins out

The waste tax is set by each commune, so it varies. In Luxembourg City, for example, a 120-litre residual bin costs €300 a year for weekly emptying, while 120-litre bins for paper, glass or biowaste cost €30 a year each. The more you sort, the smaller the bill. In the City, bins are ordered by the building’s owner or the managing agent (syndic), not the tenant.

In Luxembourg City you may put bins out from 18:00 the evening before. Collections run from 6:00 to 14:00. Take the bin back in once it’s emptied. A bin with the wrong things in it is left full.

If you live in a block of flats, sorting happens in the building’s bin room. A summary of the 2022 waste law by the Chamber of Commerce says buildings with at least four homes must have the space and containers for sorted waste.

What a mistake can cost

Waste offences can be fined on the spot. The national catalogue (Grand-ducal regulation of 9 June 2022) includes:

Offence	Fine
Dropping one cigarette butt	€145
Dropping litter, less than 2 litres	€145
Dumping 2 to 50 litres (a bin bag, for example)	€250
Dumping 50 to 500 litres	€500
Dumping 0.5 to 2 m³	€1,000
Putting the wrong waste in a public sorting container	€145
Not sorting biowaste as required	€145
Burning household waste in the open	€500
Burning garden waste in the open	€250

Communes add their own rules. Luxembourg City, for example, can fine you €25 to €250 for putting bins or bags out against its waste rules, with a one-off €25 if you pay within 15 days.

Where to ask

• Your commune’s town hall or technical service: the first stop for bins, days and the resource centre.
• emwelt.lu for the app and the national leaflet.
• valorlux.lu for the blue bag.
• sdk.lu for collection dates and hazardous products.