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If the county picks up recyclables at your home, more refuse now can go in your blue bin instead of the trash, officials announced this week.

Empty aerosol cans that held nonhazardous materials such as cooking oil spray, whipped cream, hair spray or deodorant, as well as their tops, now can be recycled if placed in the recycling bins provided by the county.

Durable plastic storage containers (including brands such as Tupperware, Rubbermaid and Sterlite) also now can be recycled if placed in the bins.

Milk and juice cartons, drink boxes, frozen food and ice cream boxes, and hot and cold paper cups also will be recycled if bundled or placed in paper bags along with mixed paper.

"We believe there are excellent markets now" for the new items, County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) said Monday while demonstrating, at a private home in Potomac, the many new items that the county will recycle.

"We can't always wait until the market is 100 percent. What we have today, we have markets for," Leggett added.

Juice and milk cartons will become newsprint, said Eileen Kao, chief of waste reduction and recycling for the county.

Frozen food boxes, paper cups and individual drink boxes will become tissue paper and paper towels.

Durable plastic storage containers will become plastic furniture and shipping pallets.

Aerosol cans will be used in auto parts and appliances.

Among items the county has long recycled, newspapers become newsprint, and paper and mail become paperboard for boxes that hold items such as tissues and cereal. Also, plastic bottles become textiles such as fleece for clothing and fibers for carpeting. Aluminum from cans is used in new aluminum cans; bi-metal cans become steel products such as auto parts and appliances; and aluminum foil goes into industrial products, including auto parts.

County officials set a target of recycling half of all waste more than a decade ago and hope to meet that goal next year.

The county's overall recycling rate is 44.3 percent, Kao said. Households recycle 56 percent of their waste already, but the commercial sector, which recently improved its recycling rate to 40 percent, has yet to meet the goal.

In July 2008, the county added plastic food containers, such as peanut butter jars and margarine tubs, to the stream of aluminum and metal cans, plastic and glass bottles, and paper and cardboard that it has long recycled.

County residents soon will receive cards in the mail explaining what can be recycled.

Apartments and condominiums in the county do not have curbside recycling but are able to expand their recycling programs, which rely on private haulers, to include the new items.

Some towns and cities in the county provide their own recycling service, and some are not taking the same items.

Gaithersburg's and Rockville's recycling services already accept the items that the county just added.

Operating costs for the county's recycling center were about $3.5 million for fiscal 2009, the last budget year. The center took in $2.7 million, marking the first time in about five years that revenue did not cover expenses, said Peter Karasik, central operations chief for the county's solid waste services.

Much lower purchase prices for recyclables, linked to the recession, caused county officials to hold onto some items, such as food cans, for a time until they could get a better deal, but nothing is being held now, he said.

Material that is not recycled has to be handled as trash at a cost of about $56 per ton, he said.

At that rate, the nonpaper materials alone that the county recycled last year would have cost more than $1.4 million to dispose of if treated as trash.

More information about the county's expanded recycling program can be found online at www.montgomerycountymd.gov/recycling or by calling 240-777-6410.