How to Correctly Dispose of Cream Charger Cylinders

Cream charger cylinders contain Nitrous Oxide, therefore it is important to safely dispose of the material.

Before disposing of your cylinder make sure to remove all the remaining gas through the nozzle. Once the cylinder is completely empty, the cylinder can be disposed of according to your local guidelines for the disposal of scrap metal.

Depending on your recycling program or municipality, cream chargers may not be accepted for disposal. In such circumstances, you can recycle them at a metal scrap yard after making sure they’re empty to avoid an explosion and harmful consumption of released chemicals.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Separately dispose of plastic and metal

Plastic covers are included with whipped cream containers. They can’t be recycled with the metal cans, thus the first step in discarding a whipped cream container is to separate the plastic and metal, then dispose of them properly.

– How to separate the plastic & metal:

Pull off the tiny plastic nozzle with the channel locks and discard it. (It can’t be recycled since it lacks a numerical code, but it’s small enough not to be a problem.)

Using the channel locks, pry up the edge of the metal ring underneath. Work your way around the ring, gradually loosening it until you can remove it completely. There will be some extra plastic components underneath (a kind of valve with a couple of little washers) that can be tossed as well. This is the only challenging element of the process, although it just takes a minute or two.

2. Check to see if the canister is completely empty

Before throwing away your whipped cream canister or any other aerosol cannister in your home, make sure it is empty.

If there is still some substance in the container, you have the option of either entirely exhausting the product or giving it away. It’s important to note that the container must be empty before recycling, as an aerosol bottle with some substance generates more waste.

3. Place them in the appropriate bin

Don’t just assume the can goes in the trash; find out if your recycling program accepts it, where they accept it, and what colour sort it is. For example, does the can belong in the blue bin or not?

Regardless, it’s important to remember that whipped cream canisters are recyclable and reusable, but they must be properly disposed of to avoid accidents that could endanger you and garbage sorters.

We encourage you to recycle your cream charger cylinders:

Steel is a 100% recyclable material. There is no degradation in quality no matter how many times metal is recycled. Metal recycling minimises the number of virgin metal ores required for new metal production. You can take the canisters to a scrap metal yard if your local council won’t accept them for recycling.