When is National Crush a Can Day?

It is marked on September 27 each year in the United States.

Is this the same as the romantic National Crush Day?

No. The September 27 day is about recycling aluminum cans. The romantic tell-your-crush trend is a separate internet observance that circulates around November 5.

Should I actually crush my cans before recycling?

It depends on your local program. Many single-stream curbside systems ask you not to, because sorters read shape, while deposit centers and scrap buyers that sort by metal type do not mind crushed cans.

Who started National Crush a Can Day?

No one is documented. There is no recorded founder, proclamation, or sponsoring organization, which is common for informal calendar observances.

Why recycle aluminum cans specifically?

Aluminum recycles endlessly and recycling it saves about 95% of the energy of making new metal, so a single can can become another can again and again.

Check your local recycling rules, rinse your empty cans, and make sure your aluminum actually reaches a recycler rather than the trash.

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National Crush a Can Day

An informal awareness observance on September 27 encouraging people to recycle aluminum beverage cans and waste less.

Sunday

September 2026

Last updated February 8, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar Team

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YEARLY DATESeptember 27

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYLifestyle

SUBCATEGORYCleaning

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A recycling day with no documented author.

National Crush a Can Day has no documented creator, founding act, or sponsoring organization. It circulates on holiday calendars with a September 27 date as a light recycling-awareness observance, often shortened to National Crush Day, and is recognized by no government or institution.

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INTRO

A day named for the move recyclers warn against

PHOTO

National Crush a Can Day asks for one small gesture on September 27: flatten an empty aluminum can and recycle it. The trouble is that a lot of recycling programs now ask you to do the opposite.

Modern curbside lines sort containers by shape. A flattened can can read as garbage to the machine and get routed to landfill, which is why county programs in Minnesota tell residents not to crush cans before single-stream pickup. The day's signature move can quietly defeat the day's whole point.

That tension is the most useful thing about it. The honest answer is that it depends on your local plant, and learning which kind you have is a better way to spend the date than crushing on autopilot.

ORIGINS

Crush a Can Day history

INTRODUCTION

The day borrows all of its substance from the aluminum can, which has a recycling story far better documented than the holiday itself. Cans became the common drinks container in the 1960s, light and cheap to ship. What set them apart came later: aluminum can be melted and reformed with no theoretical limit on how many times it cycles.

That single property turned the can into a recycling success story. About three-quarters of all the aluminum ever produced is still in use today. A used can can travel from a recycling bin to a melter to a new can on a store shelf in as little as 60 days.

CHAPTER 01

The most recycled package, and a slipping rate

None of that guarantees the loop stays full. In 2023 the United States recycled 43% of its cans, below the roughly 52% average since tracking began in 1990 and the lowest mark in decades. The can still beats every other drinks package, ahead of glass and plastic, but the gap between what aluminum can do and what gets recovered keeps widening.

CHAPTER 02

Where the date came from, as far as anyone can tell

The observance itself has no such paper trail. There is no founder on record, no proclamation, no sponsoring group. Holiday references that try to source it come up empty and say so plainly. It surfaces each September 27 as a recycling prompt, sometimes under the shorter name National Crush Day, kept alive by social posts rather than any institution.

So the day is a thin wrapper around a substantial subject. The can earned the attention; the holiday just points at it, and the most honest version of the date is the one that gets the recycling right rather than the gesture.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Crush a Can Day Matters

POLICY

Deposit states recycle 68% of cans. The rest manage 22%.

The 10 U.S. states with container-deposit refund programs recycle about 68% of their cans, versus 22% in states without one. A day about recycling habits sits next to the policy gap that explains most of the difference.

ENERGY

Recycling a can saves almost all the energy

Making a can from recycled metal takes about 5% of the energy of making one from raw ore, a 95% saving. Twenty recycled cans can be produced for the energy cost of a single new one from scratch.

WASTE

The cans we skip are worth real money

Americans threw away more than 61 billion cans in 2023, about 15 twelve-packs per person. That is close to $1.2 billion in aluminum sent to landfill in a single year.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Aluminum cans go mainstream

The lightweight aluminum beverage can becomes a common drinks container, setting up the recycling story the day later borrows.

Recycling tracking begins

Industry measurement of the U.S. aluminum-can recycling rate starts, and the rate goes on to average about 52% over the following decades.

EPA tallies the waste

The EPA's most recent full accounting records roughly 3.9 million tons of aluminum generated and about 2.7 million tons landfilled.

Recycling rate hits a low

The U.S. can recycling rate falls to 43%, its lowest in decades, even as the can stays the most recycled drinks package.

Programs say stop crushing

Minnesota county recycling programs publicize guidance not to crush cans before single-stream pickup, complicating the day's own gesture.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Crush a Can Day

Your new can is mostly old cans

The average aluminum can sold in the U.S. already contains 71% recycled content, far above the 23% in glass bottles and the single digits in plastic ones.

Recovered cans almost always become cans

The closed-loop rate for U.S. cans is 96.7%, meaning a recycled can nearly always returns as another can rather than dropping out of the loop.

The country recycles 90,000 cans a minute

At 2023 recovery levels the U.S. recycles roughly 90,000 used cans every minute, a sense of scale that makes the day's single-can gesture feel small.

Some plants do not care if you crush

Facilities that sort with eddy currents pull aluminum out by its metal properties, not its shape, so crushed cans are no problem there. The catch is knowing which kind your town runs.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Crush a Can Day

Check your local recycling rules first

Look up whether your curbside program wants cans whole or crushed before you flatten anything. The answer depends on the sorting technology your facility uses, so a two-minute check is the most useful thing you can do today.

EMPTY

Empty and rinse before the bin

A quick rinse keeps a sticky can from contaminating the rest of your recycling load. Clean cans are far more likely to actually get processed rather than tossed at the sorting line.

LEARN

Learn whether your state has a bottle deposit

States with deposit programs recover cans at roughly three times the rate of states without one. Knowing which group you live in explains a lot about where your cans end up.

START

Start a dedicated can stream at home

Keep a separate bag or bin just for aluminum so cans do not get lost in the trash. Aluminum is the one container that pays its own way back into the loop, so it is worth keeping clean and apart.

TAKE

Take cans to a deposit or scrap buyer

If you bring cans to a redemption center or scrap dealer, crushing them to save space is fine, since they sort by metal type rather than shape. This is the setting where the day's namesake gesture genuinely helps.

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