Global Recycling Day is a worldwide awareness day held every year on 18 March.
It was founded in 2018 by Ranjit Baxi, founding president of the Global Recycling Foundation, who coined the term "Seventh Resource" for recyclable materials, alongside the six primary natural resources of air, water, coal, oil, natural gas and minerals.
Last updated: August 2026.
Why Global Recycling Day Falls on 18 March
The idea was first put forward at the 2015 World Recycling Convention by Ranjit S. Baxi, president of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR).
The date chosen for the first Global Recycling Day, 18 March 2018, was symbolic: it marked BIR's 70th birthday.
Who's Behind Global Recycling Day
The Bureau of International Recycling, which Baxi led as president when he proposed the day, describes itself as the only global recycling industry federation, representing more than 30,000 companies worldwide, with a direct membership of over 950 companies and 37 national associations across 70 countries.
Under the heading "World Recycling Conventions," BIR's own site states that its recycling events "unite businesspeople from across the globe." Its next one, BIR Malaga 2026 World Recycling Convention & Exhibition, is scheduled for 26 to 27 October 2026. BIR is also currently promoting what it calls a "One Voice" manifesto, describing it as a collective vision for the global recycled materials industry. BIR's site groups its industry coverage by material stream, including ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, paper, textiles, stainless steel and alloys, plastics, tyres and rubber, and electronics.
BIR also puts a figure on why the industry matters at that scale: recycling materials, it says, supply up to 50% of the world's raw material needs.
Recycling is also simply a large industry in dollar terms. Robin Wiener, president of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries and one of the original Global Recycling Day sponsors, has put the value of recycling in the United States alone at a $100 billion industry supporting 500,000 jobs.
What "The Seventh Resource" Means
The six primary natural resources are air, water, coal, oil, natural gas and minerals, and all six are finite.
According to the Global Recycling Foundation, recycling saves more than 700 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, a figure it projects will rise to 1 billion tonnes by 2030.
What Global Recycling Day Is Trying to Achieve
The Global Recycling Foundation sets out two goals for the day: telling world leaders that recycling is too important not to be a global issue and needs a common, joined-up approach, and asking individuals to think "resource" rather than "waste" about the goods around them.
The Foundation also makes a practical environmental case for the day. Recycling conserves resources by reducing the need to extract, refine and process raw materials. Recycling materials like aluminium and paper takes significantly less energy than producing them from virgin material. And recycling helps reduce air and water pollution by cutting down waste and greenhouse gas emissions.
As the Global Recycling Foundation puts it: "It is a day for action, for the world to come together to put the planet first, and to change the mindset of governments, businesses, communities, and individuals around the world, to see recyclables as a resource."
The #RecyclingHeroes Award
Global Recycling Day also runs an annual #RecyclingHeroes award, recognising the people, places and activities that showcase recycling's role in a stable planet and a greener future.
In 2021, for example, the award was open to nominated people, businesses or activities from around the world, with ten winners each receiving a US$500 prize and being featured across Global Recycling Day's social media channels.
Australia Has Its Own Recycling Event Too
For NSW container refunds specifically, see our guide to how Return and Earn works. Australia also runs its own dedicated recycling week: Planet Ark has organised National Recycling Week every year since 1996, held during the second week of November.
In 2026, that's 9 to 15 November.
Planet Ark reports that since it started National Recycling Week in 1996, Australia's recycling rate has climbed from 7% to more than 60%, and the volume of material recycled has grown from 1.5 million tonnes to 43 million tonnes.
How Much of Australia's Waste Actually Gets Recycled
Planet Ark's since-1996 trend is one measure. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water tracks it more precisely, and its National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2024 puts Australia's national resource recovery rate for the 2022-23 financial year at 66%, made up of 63% recycling, 0.2% waste reuse and 3% energy recovery.
That national figure hides a big spread by material. Metals had the highest recovery rate of any category at 90%, followed by building and demolition materials at 84%.
Plastics lagged well behind at a 12.5% recovery rate in 2022-23, with an estimated 87.5% of plastic waste sent to landfill. Textiles, leather and rubber fared worst of all, with a recycling rate estimated at just 5%.
Household-relevant materials tell their own story. Glass recovery has climbed only slightly, from about 57% to 61%, and DCCEEW notes that container deposit schemes across the country are helping to cut down the breakage that has always plagued glass recycling. Paper and cardboard recovery has actually fallen, down to 56% from 68% in 2016-17, largely because newsprint and magazine paper (traditionally high-recycling grades) now make up less of the waste stream to begin with. Organics, which DCCEEW defines as waste food, garden vegetation, timber and similar material, sit at 62% recovery, up from 59% in 2016-17.
What This Means for a Sydney Household
Planet Ark's approach for National Recycling Week starts with the waste hierarchy: reduce what you use first, reuse what you can, then recycle what's left.
The organisation points people to tips and resources split by setting: at home, at work, at school and in the community. Planet Ark also provides tools for community groups, schools, businesses and government to run their own National Recycling Week events. Whether you're part of a council, a school, a community group, or you just want to get your own household or workplace involved, there's a way in.
Getting the basics right at home is worth the effort. As the national figures above show, what actually gets recycled depends heavily on the material: metals, building waste and glass are recovered at comparatively high rates, while plastics and textiles are not, so sorting correctly at the bin makes more difference for some materials than others.
Metals recycle better than almost anything else, at a 90% recovery rate, and 43% of what's recovered is exported for recycling, including all aluminium and tin-plated steel cans. But some toxic metals like cadmium and cobalt, and precious metals like gold and palladium, still end up landfilled inside composite products such as electronic waste rather than being recovered, which is exactly the kind of item that belongs in a proper e-waste drop-off rather than the household bin.
Container refunds are handled separately again: Return and Earn is the NSW-specific scheme, not part of your kerbside recycling bin. See our guide to how Return and Earn works for how that scheme operates.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Global Recycling Day? 18 March every year.
Who started Global Recycling Day? Ranjit S. Baxi, president of the Bureau of International Recycling, first proposed it at the 2015 World Recycling Convention. The first Global Recycling Day was held on 18 March 2018, chosen to mark BIR's 70th birthday.
What are the six natural resources recycling is the "seventh" of? Air, water, coal, oil, natural gas and minerals.
Who runs Global Recycling Day internationally? It was founded by Ranjit Baxi. Its founding institutional backer is the Bureau of International Recycling, which Baxi led as president, and which describes itself as the only global recycling industry federation, representing more than 30,000 companies across 70 countries.
How much of Australia's waste is actually recycled? Nationally, 66% of waste was recovered through recycling, reuse or energy recovery in 2022-23, according to the DCCEEW National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2024. That varies a lot by material: metals sit at a 90% recovery rate, while plastics sit at just 12.5%.
Is Global Recycling Day the same as Return and Earn? No. Global Recycling Day is a global awareness day about recycling generally. Return and Earn is a separate, NSW-specific container refund scheme with its own rules. See our Return and Earn NSW guide for how that works.
Does Australia have its own recycling event? Yes. Planet Ark's National Recycling Week has run every year since 1996, in the second week of November.
Clearing out for Global Recycling Day? If marking the day means finally getting rid of old electronics, furniture or whitegoods your yellow bin won't take, household rubbish removal or electronics removal takes it off your hands in one trip, sorted and disposed of responsibly.
Final Thoughts
Global Recycling Day is a reminder, every 18 March, that what we throw away is a resource worth protecting. And here in Australia, that same mindset gets its own dedicated week too, with Planet Ark's National Recycling Week each November, backed up by a national data picture that shows exactly where the effort still needs to go.
