Recycling trucks, sorting scenes, bins, eco heroes, smiling Earths, puzzles, and everyday trash and recyclables are covered by 64 printable designs, making up these recycling coloring pages.
What’s Inside This Collection
Recycling and Garbage Trucks
Six pages show trucks, with smiling recycling trucks carrying paper, plastic, and metal, a city collection scene, and plain garbage truck pages.
Sorting at School and Home
Thirteen pages show people sorting, with kids at labeled bins, a teacher explaining the bins in a classroom, a father teaching his daughter, a family with a bin, and a boy holding a recycling sign.
Bins and Containers
Nine pages focus on bins, including Please Recycle, a bin full of paper, bins for plastic, glass, and aluminum, and a bin for glass bottles.
Animals, Heroes, and Robots
Thirteen pages bring in characters, with Earth and animals, a bear family, a bunny, an octopus, a bee, a turtle, a dog, a recycling superhero, robots, and an astronaut.
Earth, Trees, and Eco Living
Thirteen pages show the planet and green living, with a smiling Earth, a heart-shaped Earth, a hand holding a sprouting plant, a boy planting a tree, an eco house with plants in bottles, and Reduce Reuse Recycle designs.
Activity Pages
Two pages are puzzles, with a recycling maze and a search-and-find page.
Trash and Recyclable Items
Eight pages show the items themselves, with a computer, a drink can, light bulbs, and a battery, boxes and bottles, a recycling symbol made of bottles, and overflowing trash cans.
What Recycling Coloring Pages Do
The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes better fine motor coordination as a chief benefit of guided, structured coloring for children ages 2 through 7. Early on, young children can color single-bin and smiling Earth pages; later, older children can try busy city and sorting scenes.
Sessions of structured coloring led to a measurable decline in anxiety, as documented in 2005 in the Art Therapy Journal. Simple, repeating shapes of arrows, bins, and bottles provide an easy rhythm to settle into.
The recycling symbol of three chasing arrows stands for reduce, reuse, and recycle, and it was designed in 1970 by Gary Anderson. Recycling rules differ from town to town, so families should check their local guidelines.
How to Color Recycling Pages Well
- Material bins: give each labeled bin its own color, one each for paper, plastic, glass, and metal, so the sorting is easy to see.
- Recycling symbol: bright green or blue arrows stand out well, and the same color on every symbol keeps the page consistent.
- Earth: blue for the oceans and green for the land, with a few white swirls for clouds.
- Trucks: a bold color for the truck body and a lighter gray for the windows and wheels.
- Characters: natural colors for the animals, with bright colors for the bottles and cans they carry.
5 Creative Craft Ideas With Recycling Coloring Pages
1. Recycling Sort Game
Color the bins and the small items, cut the items out, and match each one to the right bin.
2. Scrap Paper Collage
Tear colored scrap paper into small pieces and glue them over the shapes of a recycling page.
3. Cardboard Frame
Color a page, glue it to a piece of recycled cardboard, and use it as a frame or display board.
4. Classroom Recycling Poster
Color the bin and symbol pages and add short labels to show which items go in each bin.
5. Earth Day Card
Begin by coloring a smiling Earth page, mount the picture on a folded sheet of card, and fill the inside with a short poem for someone who helps the planet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the two puzzle pages really free?
Yes, the two puzzle pages, along with the other 62 printables, cost nothing to download, with nothing to register for.
Can the sorting pages be colored digitally?
Yes, the sorting pages load inside the site’s online tool, and a phone is all it takes.
What does the recycling symbol mean?
The three chasing arrows stand for reduce, reuse, and recycle, and the symbol was designed in 1970 by Gary Anderson.
When is America Recycles Day?
America Recycles Day is on November 15, and Global Recycling Day is on March 18.
Which pages show how to sort recycling?
Thirteen pages show people sorting, and nine more pages focus on bins for paper, plastic, glass, and metal.
Are there recycling puzzle pages?
Yes, there is a recycling maze and a search and find page.
Which recycling pages are easiest for young colorists?
The single-bin pages, the smiling Earth pages, and the friendly animal pages are drawn with big shapes that small hands can fill.
What can come out of a colored recycling page?
Once colored, a recycling page lends itself to the Recycling Sort Game craft or the Earth Day Card, and also the Cardboard Frame craft, with the Classroom Recycling Poster project as another route.
Trucks, bins, sorting, and green living are all part of it. Every page of these 64 downloads at no cost, in print or on screen. Each completed page can reach either Facebook or Pinterest through the share icons.
