If I recycle bottles, do I keep the lid on when I put them in the bin?

We recently visited our local landfill (outing with the Scouts) and discovered that the bottle caps need to be taken off. First, because they are made of a different type of plastic…but more importantly because if a plastic bottle is on the floor of the recycling center and driven over by a piece of machinery the cap can fly off and injure a worker. Actually we were told that is the most common injury at the recycling center.

Source(s): visit to the landfill with a discussion on recycling1

I had no idea but a few years ago decided some plastic caps made great checkers or chips for board games & such.. Then decided to find more uses for caps. They work pretty well at protecting the floor from scratches when used under furniture legs. Also they came in handy as spacers when I stained wood shelving. The cats get a bit of tuna every 2 or 3 months & caps are a nice size without stinking up their regular dish. Sometimes I put small caps in the bottom of a planter before adding potting soil so the water has some drain space. Now I guess I will have to come up with even more uses.

Most recyclers want the cap off the bottle to prevent bottles with water in them from adding weight to the refuse. The cap can be included in the pile for recycling, just keep it off the bottle and you’ll be fine.

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Our recycling center asks that everyone remove all lids and discard and then rinse out the plastic bottle and remove the label if possible. I asked them where to discard the lid and they said to put it in with the plastic bottles and when they sort or sift through the bottles, the bottle caps fall to another level and are recycled separately.

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Take the caps of, but still recycle them. Keep them in a separate bag until you have enough then recycle.

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Good for you!! If you include industry and offices, 80% of all plastic bottles – soda, juice, water, etc., end up in the land fill anyway.

Why?

Because they are not sorted properly, or not cleaned, or because the caps have been left on. As another poster put it, the cap and the container are often made of different kinds of plastic and that too needs to be separated and sorted.

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I guess it depends on which company the bottle is going and what they tell you. My community has a recycling pick up on the same day as garbage day. They gave some information about it and they didn’t say anything about getting rid of the lids.

I lived in another part of town and they have a recycling program also. If I remember right they told us to remove the lid, and wash the bottle. The area I live in now doesn’t even tell us to do anything like wash the bottle and that the aluminum foil has to be clean, etc. like the other place might have told us.

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No!!! Take them off first!! The reason for this is that the caps are often made from a different kind of plastic than the bottle, which needs to be separated before the recycling process can begin. Removing it before putting it in the recycling bin makes it much easier for the recycling center to process; some centers will not recycle capped bottles at all.

Source(s): http://www.plentymag.com/ask/28/10/bottle_caps.p…5

put them in separately – different re-uses. same applies to 7-up bottles etc. don’t forget to wash and squash. it’s easier to squash if you use some hot water.

Source(s): personal knowledge – a professional involvement1

i read that not all centers recycle the caps-& if there is a bottle w/ a cap on,they’ll trash it rather than remove it. so,i always remove the cap.

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Be like a gentleman when a lady enters the room: caps off.

Not only may the cap be of a different plastic that is not recycled in your community, many times the plastic is collected in compactor trucks. Try to compact a tightly-capped bottle and you get a bang out of it — literally.

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