Do you have to clean empty water bottles? We clean all of our juice bottles and other stuff. I’ve never heard of cleaning water bottles but wanted to make sure.

The instructions from my trash service are that the cans do not need to be rinsed (although I always rinse--I can't stand the thought of the goop fermenting in the bottom of the can until the next trash day), and they appreciate it when we separate the cans for them, although it's not necessary.

But, they are a privately owned company, not a public service, so they are the ones who separate the cans for recycling, for profit. Now that the demand, and price, for used metals is down, I don't know if they still go to the trouble. As far as I know, they don't recycle plastic or paper, so we take those to recycling bins at the local grocery store. However, my son-in-law, who is usually the one dropping off the recycling, said the bins have been recently pulled from both Kroger and Lowe's parking lots. My younger DD lives in an area with glass recycling bins, so she takes our glass home with her.

In my area it's fine to put allowed normal recyclable items in a plastic bag in the bin. While the garbage charge depends on the size of the bin you have, the recycling is free and unlimited and when you have more than your bin holds, their request is that you put the excess in plastic bags next to the recycling bin.

We have two plastic trash cans under the sink, one for regular garbage and one for recycling items. Without lining each with a removable plastic garbage bag, it would be a mess to clean them.

arkansas girl, it is like you say, here too.

Elmer, I have two indoor trashcans... one for garbage, lined, one for recycle, no lining. All our recycling goes in there clean, as that is what is requested.

our outdoor cans are the same size, HUGE, and I don't often fill either one. The recycling one goes out about every 5 weeks... there just isn't much throw away stuff we gather.

Moni

Iron things are separated via a magnet at most localities. The nestled cans can be a hazard when the magnet is raised and the nestled things are on the bottom of the bunch and the inside cans fall out. One time on the Discovery channel there was a series where owners did their employees jobs. Sorry do not remember name of show. They showed how recycling was separated. The cans falling from the magnet was one of the things I most remember besides the speed of the conveyer belt that moved the trash in front of the people that were supposed to separate things.

The only thing of any value in most recycling here other than the person donating feeling good is glass. One of our local beer companies started doing it several years ago and that was where a large percentage the new bottles are made from. Not certain that the new owners still do this but at least they sponsor the bins. Owens Corning also co-sponsors the bins that are scattered about town for collection but I have not read where they use it in making insulation in the glass furnaces they have here. Glass you have to take to the bins the rest of the stuff is curbside collection.

Put my recycling out last night and it was fuller than my garbage.

Yes, I suppose that some places are different. Our company is called "Green Team" and this is what they have told use. I also have them on my facebook and constantly get these reminders of what people are doing wrong. With the company that does our recycling...they will throw anything bound up in plastic bags into the trash and it will not be recycled. These go to huge sorting facilities and they do not have the time to open up tied up plastic bags and get the recycling out of them. The containers that need to be rinsed are container that are dirty with food debris. Also, they do not want greasy cardboard like messy pizza boxes. If they are clean, it's OK but not full of old greasy food.

I would suggest that if you are unsure of how your company does things, to please call and find out. Don't just assume.

Garbage, and mostly unlimited recycling and yard waste each get weekly curbside pick-up in my area, on the same day by the same company but with different trucks.

There were a number of articles earlier in the year talking about how a lot of "recyclable" waste that formerly went to China is now not accepted there because of a law change. Where our stuff winds up, I don't know or care since there's nothing I can do about it. I've saved money by downsizing the garbage bin I pay for because we can put so much (following their rules) into the recycle bin.

Here's a NY TImes article with more info

Recycled or dumped?

I just had SIL take a bunch of stuff to recycling, which is to large bins just two blocks from me. I really like this convenience, as some years ago it was part of our garbage service, only picking up recyclables the first Thursday of the month. Sooooooo, if you missed it, you were stuck with all that stuff for another month

I advise the people follow the instructions of their recycle service. The instruction for one recycler may not suffice for a different one. Different recyclers in different locations have their own unique equipments, staffing, and procedures. For example, it was mentioned above to not put paper fragments in a plastic bag. My recycle service says to put the shredded paper in a "clear" plastic bag such that the contents can be identified. If you put paper scraps in an opaque bag, their automated equipment will separate these out and route those to the garbage land fill.

My recycler says to remove bottle caps and put those in the garbage bin. The material in the bottle cap often does not match that of the bottle. Also, loose, plastic caps in the recycle material fall through their conveyors and ends up on the ground. Those are periodically scooped up and tossed into the garbage. Those loose caps makes are a nuisance in their equipment and makes extra work for the employees.

If the cap is left on a soda bottle, it will be routed to an automatic machine that cuts the neck (and cap) off and discards these to the garbage material. This represents a sizeable loss of recyclable material since the threaded neck is much thicker than the remainder of the bottle. It adds to the amount of material tossed into a land fill.

I reiterate: Follow the instructions of your recycle service. Procedures for different recyclers are not the same.

I live under the same regulations as Elmer. Single stream recycling From the time recycling of any type was offered I complied. However I have lost faith in the process. I still comply and do my best because I've saved money by downsizing the garbage bin I pay for because we can put so much (following their rules) into the recycle bin.

Many neighborhoods have a lot of recycling theft occurring also. Those illegal scavengers lower the revenue for the waste companies who depend on recycles to keep their overhead down thus not having to raise rates.

Now in a neighboring county they have raised the rates plus now they are requesting all recycling not only be rinsed but cleaned of all food left inside. I got the notice last month. Now we are supposed to conserve water in this state yet they are requesting us to wash our garbage. I think I would rather pay a higher waste bill should the recycling program ends than a higher water bill. I predict yet another high rate increase on water in the near future if enough people comply and thoroughly start cleaning all their recyclable waste.

The message was worded that just a bit of peanut butter or tomato sauce residue in a can or jar would contaminate the whole load. So residents are to wash or throw the recyclables in the trash. OOOKAY.

Definitely different in different areas and companies. Some have huge washers that clean the cans and bottles as they go down the conveyors. No problem with bagged here.

I have an unusual take on it all. I thoroughly washed all of my recyclables as I decided a long time ago if I didn't have these cans from the store and food from the store I would have my food contained in something and have to wash that something anyway. So I treat recyclables as if they were my dishes and containers. For each meal I just have a few more things to wash.

Here we are to bag plastic bags together and we have plastic recycling bags designated for newspaper and regular paper Etc and then boxes for the rest of it. Everything goes to the recycling/composting companies and we don't get very many scavengers.

As I mentioned above, I have our recycling company's feed coming to my facebook page daily. It's a big issue for them that people are bagging their stuff up in little grocery bags. I know that people are doing this at almost every single recycle bin that I see on our streets as I'm going down the road or walking my dog. Bag after bag after bag...I just shake my head! Seems like they are just wasting their time recycling because it's not even being recycled according to their facebook page! I'm sure these people have no clue that they are not supposed to do this! It could also be that last year it was OK but this year they have changed rules. If I go to their website, the rules for their recycling are kind of strict. They do want all lids removed, they do not want stuff nested, they want plastic containers such as sour cream to be rinsed, cans are supposed to be rinsed. I think it's going to get to a point where people will just stop bothering. I usually just put the container in my sink and as I'm using water in the kitchen sink, I allow the containers to fill up with water and then I rinse them out with wasted water. You could probably just wipe them with discarded paper towels too if you don't want to waste the water. We have NO WATER SHORTAGE HERE! HAHAHA! It rains and rains here in Ohio!

We have what is called Single Stream recycling and they want everything all piled together with no separation. At the large bin places that you can take your stuff, it says all over the side of the dumpster to not put anything in plastic bags. When you look in them, you will see lots and lots of bagged items thrown in there. I don't understand why people cannot follow instructions?

There are also areas of the country that will fine you if you throw away something that's supposed to be recycled. I guess that's probably in California?

Washed/rinsed items and put into brown paper bags. No plastic bags from our

grocery...so have a ready supply of the brown paper ones. When the brown

bags are full...put them into the recycle bin. Helps keep the bin cleaner and

"unsmelly" too. Doesn't take that long. Hate the darn plastic bags....so refuse them whenever

possible. We have curbside pickup of recycle bins on Garbage day too. But, as you say...

follow your own area's rules. They do seem to differ a lot.

We don't have to, but we place cans, jars, paper, plastic in separate paper grocery bags then place those bags in a 90 gallon recycle bin. Boxes like Prime etc., are broken down, folded and bound together then placed on top of recycle bin so driver doesn't need to get out of the truck to snatch it.

We respect our hard working crew.

We're tidy, clean people, unlike some who are slobs inside and out.

Speaking of recycling, in our supermarkets an entire aisle is devoted to chips and pretzels and other bagged snacks. As far as I can tell, almost none of those bags are recyclable. I wish something could be done about that.

I don't think anyone answered Tennessee's question at the top of this thread. I don't have a definitive answer, but I can't imagine why anyone would wash a water bottle--assuming it never held anything besides water.

When China stopped accepting recycling (until that point I had no idea our garbage was being sent to China) my trash service added a surcharge onto our bill. But I don't know where the contents of our huge recycling bin (I share it with my son and daughter-in-law) ends up each week.

Ours cans, bottles etc, can't be bagged. They must be loose in the container. Sometimes they'll empty the bin and put the bagged back into it. I'm afraid they won't take the bin at all if there's bagged stuff on top.

Arkansas, I'll have to check on the 'nesting' thing. It drives me crazy to see big cans taking up space so I always fill them with smaller ones. (Coffee cans, etc).

Our bottles are to be capped. The lady who lives below us removes the labels from everything. We haven't had to do that for several years, she does it out of habit I guess.

Maybe someday someone will figure out how to "mine" landfills. Wouldn't that be nice?

I agree with Alisande, we have a different set of guidelines to follow, we have to use large clear trash bags for plastics, a red plastic box for paper and tall heavy duty paper bags for compost. They don’t do cans and don’t care about the condition of the plastic as long as the items can be recycled. The bags can be kind of pricey but it’s worth it if it accomplishes the goal.

Recycling is part of the deal here so I recycle what I can. Who knows what they do with it when it gets to the recycling center. I often wonder if a lot of it doesn't get routed to the landfill anyway.

My exception on recycling is glass. That part doesn't make sense. You're putting a jar into a big bin which gets dropped into a large truck and then emptied some place. Isn't a lot of that glass going to get broken in the process? I throw it away because I don't want broken glass on the street in front of my house because it fell out of the bin when they were tossing it in..

How many communities represented here require the driver to manually lift and empty the trash container? The only manual lift here is the yard waste bags, bundled landscape, etc.

Our garbage truck picks up the trash containers mechanically. The men don't have to exit the truck. I live out in the country, so there's no such thing as yard waste. ;-)

Our garbage is lifted by hand, not mechanical.

We have to put garbage in plastic bags but recycle stuff in a small bin. Glass is taken to special bins that are scattered around the area.

Someone mentioned clear garbage bags above. Wondering where you find them as I have never seen them in this area. Then I was thinking of all the personal items that babies, women, and some older adults would need to put into the bags. Are nonclear bags allowed to be placed inside the clear ones?

The big money in recycling has always been aluminum, I think newspaper comes next and maybe cardboard. Glass takes a specific sort of sand which has gotten into shorter supply, old glass is crushed and added to new glass. We separate by color here. When I am washing other stuff in my sink I use the dirty water to wash my cans-mostly cat food which though they are aluminum go in with mixed metals. Though I have no shortage of water being on a nice deep well it just makes sense to me. I don't put my copper pans and pots in the dishwasher so I do this most days. I just naturally try to conserve resources. I have thought that someday people with be mining dumps. When you think of the aluminum alone it would pay eventually.

Just south of where Brushworks lives, the only plastic the curbside pickup will recycle is bottles -- must be bottle shaped. No caps or lids. No sour cream, yogurt or margarine containers. No plastic bags -- it fouls their equipment. All paper/cardboard is wanted, except coated, shredded or dirty. Clean aluminum foil or disposable pans, otherwise only food/soda cans (but if you put your other metal trash at the curb the afternoon before trash day, a picker will likely take it.) Only glass bottles & jars, no broken windowpanes, mirrors, light bulbs, dinnerware. We don't have to remove labels.

Lately there has been a bit of publicity surrounding the problem with batteries placed in the recycling bins starting fires in the sorting facility.

The recycling facility sends letters to our homes twice each year with the "rules", the city and the company posts them on their facebook feeds every few months, it get mentioned on the news and in the newspapers and the neighborhood newsletter -- and as arkansasgirl has noticed, people clearly still don't know. I see not only plastic bags, but all kinds of trash & broken items that I guess folks hope will be recyclable because it has a bit of metal or plastic on it. I also see dead plants, food, rocks, construction debris -- surprising what some folks think can be recycled.

Our recycling bins provided by the trash company hold three brown shopping bags. They request we use them to sort plastic/glass/cans. I will continue as requested.

raee, your recycling sounds like the same rules as ours. I am in Ohio also. We cannot recycle cardboard at curb side pickup though. We have to take those to the big dumpster facilities they provide...there are two in our city. I see people put out boxes for curb pickup though.