this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Mildly Infuriating
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Nearly all containers (glass or plastic) need to have their label removed to recycle properly. And you must rinse them out, too.
Some can be recycled with the label on, but only if the plastic used is the type that can be recycled. Confusing and frustrating, yes.
The crappy thing is that some labels really don't come off easily because they've been glued in place... those are awful to recycle because it requires quite a bit of extra effort, soaking, adhesive remover, etc... 😂
This step right here has to end. Recycling facilities should have cycling filtered graywater loops to do the rinsing. Using clean drinking water to rinse out containers is an absolute waste.
I work for a plastic recycling plant manufacturer, specifically for the sorting, shredding, cleaning and drying steps of plastic recycling (after that you usually have melting and extrusion before ending up with small plastic pellets that can be used to make other stuff).
I can confirm you, we have "cycling filtered grey water" cleaning. You don't need to clean up your plastic containers, just empty them. Also various chemicals will be used in the process, when necessary.
We also make de-labelers to remove the labels from plastic bottles, although this kind of label in the picture is extremely hard to remove and, afaik, either requires human labor (aka poor countries with labor conditions you don't want to think about) or just becomes waste. So yeah, this is some of the worst shit.
I've been to a recycling sorting facility (glass, paper, metal and plastic all go in the same bin here). The people working the conveyor belts had to practically wear hazmat suits, as whatever came in was vile. I rinse my containers extra clean since I saw that.
At least in Germany that step is not necessary as far as I know.
It...it probably is.
Not really. We do have to make sure to empty the container as good as possible though.
Man, I was looking into Germany's waste infrastructure in general, and damn, I'm jealous, lol. I couldn't find any concrete answers to the degree on which you should rinse plastic, though. That said, I imagine it's probably in your best interest to at least give a quick rinse to avoid your own bin getting nasty, even if not required.
What I found is the term löffelrein, a wonderful German word meaning something like "as clean as possible when using a spoon" for joghurt for example.
I usually bring my trash down before it get's nasty. Our "bio trash" is more of a problem, as anything biodegradable gets into it which attracts fruit flys. Rinsing plastics is still just a waste of water (and time).
I agree, but rinsing at home addresses multiple concerns.
I think the issue is that some people throw out containers with their lids on and completely covered in food matter.
a) it makes it difficult/impossible to actually recycle when it finally gets there. b) it attracts wildlife to your recycling bins.
It's just best practice, really.
I'd argue this point is nullified given recycling and trash live next to each other for pick-up (at least in the US). If your bins don't seal to keep scent away, they'll be targeting the trash cans anyways.
In parts of the world where clean drinking water is at a premium and increasingly more so, (like the western half and soon 2/3 of the US) it definitely matters to conserve the water we need to live whenever possible.
This brings up another good point though, packaging design should be changed to ensure the maximum amount of purchased product can be removed for use as easily as possible. So many containers today are designed to be sold as "this has 20oz in it!" and only 18oz is accessible. They then have tiny necks or convoluted lips or shapes to make reaching into the container with tools to remove the rest of the product difficult. The companies don't care about the loss of product as the extra 2oz costs them essentially nothing. Even though that added weight is wasting energy being transported at every single stage of the supply chain to be thrown away at the end, they got the sale because it said 20 instead of 18 on the bottle and they could mark up the price accordingly!
tl;dr on the last paragraph: If the container is designed to start its recycling journey as devoid of product as possible, the whole process will have less cleanup and energy/water use, whatever the process is.
I'm Canadian, and in my municipality, we have recycling (cardboard, plastic, glass), compost (food matter), and garbage (pretty much anything that can't be recycled.
The compost bins are sealed, so pests are never a concern. I don't have issues with open recycling bins, but did before I learned how to actually recycle stuff. My garbage bags never have issues, since they don't have food in them.
I can see issues in places that don't offer such a robust garbage/recycling program.
100% agree. It frustrates me to have to clean something that's going to be thrown out, but if you're strategic about it, you can find ways to do this with very minimal impact on water use.
Not to go off track, but I found that since I've been cooking my own beans, making my own non-dairy milk, and relying less on packaged good, my recycling bins are nearly empty every week. Reducing or reusing is often much better for everyone than recycling.
A bottle is hard to rinse lid or not.
Wouldn’t you just rough chop the material and then rinse it?
I don't even know if that's feasible, but if there's a municipality that already does this, I'd love to know how it's been going for them.
It wouldn't prevent the problem of wildlife/pests getting into dirty recycling items, though.
It would be so much easier if drink companies just used standardized containers instead of making their own homemade special designs to try and look fancy.
Orange juice was fine in a 2L cardboard box. We just recently got a jug of Tropicana or some shit and it's some fancy moulded pitcher shape with a spout and flip up plastic lid. That just makes everything more difficult, especially recycling because it will be a pain to rinse out I bet.
I'd be 100% ok if all containers were mason jars. Most of the time, I can't even reuse glass jars because of their stupid, non-standard lids!
Cereal should just come in a biodegradable plastic, no box.
But standardize everything. Never mind hassling consumers not to use plastic bags when companies are putting layer upon layer of plastic on their products. If a manufacturer can't use a standardized package, they shouldn't be allowed to sell the product without a massive environmental tax added onto their product.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that only true if the plastic uses for the label is in the same category (same recycling symbol) as the bottle?
In my experience, some labels are quite detailed and will say whether you need to separate the label or lid from the container, or not.
But generally speaking, yes, assuming the material class is the same, it should be fine to recycle them together.