Do you make these 6 common recycling mistakes?
I was given few rules from the company that takes my recycling and didn't know how to avoid common mistakes. I knew that they take a bunch of my recyclable materials including plastics one through seven, cans, and paper products. When I ended up with a sheet of plastic with the number four stamped on it inside the recycle symbol, I plopped it in the bin. After two pickups, the workers seemed to be ignoring my plastic. When I asked during the following visit, the owner of the company told me, "we can take it but it'll just end up in the trash." Apparently, despite the markings, my number four piece of plastic was not recyclable in my area.It's not just some plastics that end up in the trash after getting picked up from people's homes. Cardboard, metals and other items get tossed regularly. Small measures can be taken on your end to prevent your dutifully sorted recyclables from ending up in the landfill.
- Broken glass is difficult to sort and will most likely end up in the trash so it's best to take care of it safely on your end or reuse it.
- Food stained paper products are no good! This includes pizza boxes. If the bottom of the box is a greasy, soiled mess but the top cover is pristine, toss the bottom into the trash and recycle the remainder.
- Other common paper products that can't be recycled are waxed paper and cardboard, oil soaked paper, carbon paper, sanitary products or tissues, thermal fax paper, stickers and plastic laminated paper, juice boxes, and pet food bags.
- Unless told otherwise, you do not have to remove staples from paper or cardboard that is to be recycled.
- Remove caps from bottles before recycling as they are often made from a different type of plastic and can contaminate the batch.
- Don't bother peeling labels off from metals and glass. The recycling process will due this on its own ... but thanks for the effort!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-07-2008 @ 11:35AM
Phil L. said...
This sort of thing often varies by locale - and can change over time.
My municipality recently updated their plastic recycling program to accept some tub/yogurt-style containers; previously, they only accepted "bottle" shaped containers (interesting: with *no* numeric restriction).
I only found out about this change through their web site, so it helps to check in periodically.
Reply
5-08-2008 @ 10:04AM
Chris M. said...
When it comes to removing the paper from your cans, you are correct in saying that it's not required, but it IS a good habit to get into. The problem being that when the paper coated can gets melted down, that paper gets burnt off. If you're already peeling off the label, keep it up, because you're probably also throwing that paper label in your paper recycling pile. Recycled paper is better than burnt paper.
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5-08-2008 @ 10:05AM
kelly.leahy said...
Good point. I don't struggle with the cans, it's the glass bottles that I fight with because the labels are glued on.
5-08-2008 @ 10:23AM
Jaime Haber said...
What about ziplock baggies? Can those be recycled?
Reply
5-08-2008 @ 10:25AM
kelly.leahy said...
I don't think so but they can reused a lot of different ways. I'll do a post on this tomorrow.
5-08-2008 @ 9:38PM
Chris M. said...
Here's a trick for you then, we don't have a dishwasher at our house, so we do all our dishes by hand. Even those that do have dishwashers still tend to do some of their dishes by hand. When you're done your dishes, before you drain that sink, reuse that water to soak the labels off your glass bottles. One problem I've had lately though, lots of wine bottles are really hard to get the labels off. I think the manufacturers are doing this so that when you make your own wine, you're forced to look at their labels.
Anyway, that's my two-cents worth.
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5-08-2008 @ 9:38PM
kelly.leahy said...
Thanks for the tip, Chris!