Short answer: not always, but they don’t have to go straight to a landfill. If the bin belongs to the city, it’s usually city property, so don’t put it in your household recycling. Call your local sanitation or public works department and ask whether they repair, refurbish, resell, or scrap old bins. Many cities reuse parts or send metal and rigid plastic bins to a dedicated recycler.
If it’s your own bin, check what it’s made of and whether your local recycling center accepts large rigid plastic. Curbside programs often reject bins because of their size, wheels, and metal axles, so you may need to remove those parts and take it to a transfer station or scrap yard. Metal bins are often accepted as scrap metal.
Before recycling, consider repair or reuse. A cracked lid or broken wheel can sometimes be fixed, and an old bin can become storage or a compost container. If it’s truly at the end of its life, ask the city or a waste hauler for the right disposal route. Landfill should be the last resort—not the automatic one.