We have driven the Ring Road in Iceland and taken the ferry from Denmark. We have camped in lava fields, hiked to waterfalls at midnight, and eaten lamb soup in a petrol station. But one thing nobody warned us about — the thing we googled in a panic three days in — was how to get rid of our rubbish.

Iceland has almost no public trash bins. This is not an accident. It is a deliberate waste management policy, and if you do not know about it before you arrive, you will spend a good part of your road trip hauling a growing bag of plastic bottles and snack wrappers around in your boot, wondering what on earth you are supposed to do with it.

Why Iceland has almost no public bins

The first time Joona pulled over at a viewpoint near Skógafoss and looked for somewhere to toss a coffee cup, there was nothing. Not a bin, not a sign pointing to one, just an information board about the waterfall and a small wooden fence to keep people from the edge. We carried that cup for four hours.

This is not Iceland being negligent. It is a considered position — one that several Nordic countries have experimented with to varying degrees, but that Iceland has taken further than most.

The “pack it in, pack it out” principle

Iceland’s approach is borrowed from wilderness hiking ethics: if you bring it into a natural area, you take it out. The logic is that bins in scenic locations attract rubbish — they overflow, they draw animals, and they require expensive maintenance in remote places with no road infrastructure for regular collection. Removing the bin, the theory goes, transfers the responsibility back to the visitor.

The policy works reasonably well when visitors know about it in advance. It fails badly — and creates littering — when they do not, which is exactly what happened to us on day two near Þórsmörk, when our rental car’s boot was starting to smell and we had no idea where the nearest disposal point was.

• Urban Reykjavík: bins exist and are fairly regular — this is a functioning capital city.
• Towns and villages: petrol stations usually have bins. Not always accessible 24 hours.
• Viewpoints and waterfalls: almost never a bin. Treat every stop like a trailhead.
• Camping grounds: most organised campsites have bins and recycling stations included in the fee.
• Wild camping: no bins, no facilities. Full pack-it-out required.

Where you can actually dispose of waste

Once we understood that bins were not coming to us, we learned to go to the bins. There are reliable options — they are just not where you would instinctively look.

Petrol stations — the most reliable option

The N1, Orkan, and ÓB petrol station chains are your best friends on the Ring Road. Nearly all of them have bins outside or near the entrance, and most are open 24 hours with card-operated pumps even when the shop is closed. We made it a habit to stop at a petrol station every morning to fill the tank, grab coffee, and get rid of the previous day’s waste — this rhythm made the whole thing easy.

• N1: the most widespread chain, found in almost every town and many remote locations. Bins consistently available.
• Orkan: slightly cheaper fuel, similarly reliable for waste disposal.
• ÓB: less common but the same pattern — bins near the pumps.
• Smaller local stations: variable. If the shop looks closed and there is no bin visible from the pump, move on to the next stop.

Recycling stations (gámasvæði)

Every Icelandic town has at least one gámasvæði — a free community recycling area, usually a cluster of large green or yellow containers for different waste types (glass, paper, plastic, general waste, organic). They are often near the main road into town, near a supermarket, or at the edge of industrial areas. They are always free to use.

The easiest way to find them is to search gámasvæði or “recycling station” in Google Maps before you leave mobile data range. We downloaded offline maps for all of Iceland on Maps.me and marked every gámasvæði we could find before leaving Reykjavík — a half-hour investment that saved us considerable stress.

Campsites

If you are camping, the fee at most organised sites includes access to bins and often separated recycling. Sites run by the Icelandic Camping Card network are consistent about this. The bins are usually near the entrance or the facilities block.

Quick-reference: disposal stops on the Ring Road

These are the towns and stops where we consistently found reliable disposal options, working clockwise from Reykjavík. Use this as a checklist when planning your daily driving segments.

• Reykjavík / Keflavík: bins everywhere. Stock up on supplies here and dispose of everything before you leave.
• Selfoss: large Bónus supermarket with recycling containers in the car park. Reliable.
• Hella: N1 petrol station. Bins outside.
• Vík: N1 station plus a gámasvæði on the edge of town. One of the most reliable mid-south stops.
• Höfn: petrol station and large supermarket. Good stop after the long empty stretch east of Vík.
• Egilsstaðir: the main town in the east. Full facilities including a gámasvæði. Essential stop if you are heading north.
• Mývatn area (Reykjahlíð): small N1 station. Use it — the next reliable option is 50 km away.
• Akureyri: the north’s main city. Bins, supermarkets, full facilities. Great stop to reset and reorganise.
• Borgarnes: reliable N1 on the west side. Good stop before the Snæfellsnes peninsula.

Tips for managing waste in a campervan or rental car

The practical challenge is not just finding bins — it is keeping your vehicle livable while you look for one. We learned these things slowly and mostly by getting it wrong first.

• Dedicate one bag from day one. Before you leave the supermarket in Reykjavík, set aside one large, sealable bag specifically for waste. Do not let rubbish drift loose around the car — it smells, it gets everywhere, and you lose track of what is recyclable.
• Separate recycling from day one. Iceland has real recycling infrastructure. Bring two bags: one for general waste, one for bottles, cans, and clean plastic. The effort is minimal and the gámasvæði containers are set up for it.
• Plan a disposal stop into your driving day. Before you start driving each morning, locate the next petrol station or town with a gámasvæði on your route. Treat it like a fuel stop — non-optional.
• Never leave waste in the boot overnight in summer. A sealed bag in a warm boot develops a smell remarkably quickly. If you are camping without access to site bins, keep the bag in a secure outer compartment or transfer to a site bin before sleeping.
• Deposit bottles and cans separately. Iceland has an excellent bottle deposit system — plastic bottles and aluminium cans have a deposit of 25–35 ISK each. Return them at any supermarket (look for the reverse vending machines at the entrance). On a two-week trip for two people this pays for at least one petrol fill.
• Organic waste is the hardest. Fish bones, coffee grounds, leftover food — these cannot go in a general bin at a petrol station. Plan meals to minimise organic scraps, or use the organic containers at a gámasvæði. Many campsites also have a separate organic waste stream.

Recycling in Iceland — what goes where

Iceland’s recycling system is more developed than most visitors expect. The gámasvæði containers are usually colour-coded and labelled in Icelandic and English, but it helps to know the categories before you arrive.

• General waste (blandet/mixed): anything that is not separately recyclable. Food-contaminated packaging, tissues, mixed materials. This is the container that looks like a standard large bin.
• Paper and cardboard (pappír): clean cardboard boxes, newspapers, paper bags. Remove any food residue first.
• Glass (gler): bottles and jars. Remove lids. Note that deposit bottles (with the label showing a deposit) go back to the shop, not here.
• Plastic (plast): clean plastic packaging, not bottles with a deposit. Rinse if food-contaminated.
• Metal (málmar): tins, foil, non-deposit cans.
• Hazardous waste (spillefni): batteries, electronics, chemicals. Not relevant for most road trips, but there is always a separate container for this.

Mistakes we made (and what they cost us)

• Not researching this before we arrived. We spent two days in low-grade panic before we figured out the petrol station system. Thirty minutes of research before the trip would have solved it.
• Assuming viewpoint car parks would have bins. They do not. Dyrhólaey, Seljalandsfoss, Jökulsárlón — beautiful, but bin-free. We started a separate “viewpoint stop” bag in the front seat for convenience wrappers.
• Not returning deposit bottles early enough. We accumulated about 40 bottles and cans by day five because we kept thinking we would sort it later. Sort it the same day you buy. The deposit machine at Krónan takes about three minutes for a full bag and gives you a store voucher on the spot.
• Using only one bag for everything. Day four: a slightly leaky container of skyr had migrated to the bottom and made everything else questionable. Two bags minimum, always — general waste and clean recyclables.
• Camping without checking site facilities. One night we chose a remote site that turned out to be a basic flat by a river with no facilities at all — no water, no bins. Perfectly legal to camp there, but we had nowhere to put waste until the next morning’s petrol station stop. Check the Camping Card app and the site notes before you arrive.
• Ignoring the smell until it was bad. By day seven the general waste bag had developed a personality of its own. Empty it every day if you are near a facility. Do not wait until it is full.

Frequently asked questions

A final word from Rovaniemi

We have road-tripped through a lot of countries. Finland has good public bin coverage. Norway has reasonable provision at most viewpoints. Iceland is in a category of its own — and knowing that before you arrive makes the difference between a stressful first few days and a trip that flows.

The system, once you understand it, is actually fine. Petrol stations are frequent enough on the Ring Road that you are never more than a day away from a proper disposal stop. The gámasvæði network is free and well-organised. The bottle deposit scheme is so easy it almost feels like a game. And the discipline of not generating more waste than you can manage is, honestly, good travel habit regardless of where you are.

Iceland asks visitors to take the environment seriously. That feels appropriate for a country that looks like it does.