Should I Remove Lids From My Glass Recyclables?

Glass jars or bottles may have either plastic or glass lids on them which may lead to some confusion when throwing these into your recycling bin. Should they be removed? Are they, themselves, recyclable? Will leaving them on contaminate the whole load of recycling?

At the Recycling Works facility in Elkhart, Indiana, their state-of-the-art facility is well-equipped to handle these questions....and these commodities. Recycling Works employs the help of such a sophisticated sorting machine that the lids on glass containers do not have to be removed before placing the containers into regular recycling.

Can I Recycle Tires?

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans wear out about 290 million tires a year, and recycle 233 million of them.This number is actually astonishing and lands way above the recycling rate for some items that we would think would be recycled at a far higher rate.

Aluminum recycling rates are at an average of about 66%, while PET plastic recycling comes in at a disappointing rate of only about 35%.

How Do I Dispose of Used Cooking Oil?

Cooking oil is used more and more, especially around the holidays while deep frying that turkey for your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. But what should you do with the leftover oil? There are a few schools of thought on this topic.

Recycle It - Some feel that you are easily able to recycle it if there is a facility within your community who specialize in this type of thing. Recycling used cooking oil, or motor oil for that matter, involves a process of straining out larger pieces of food and depositing it into a unit specifically labeled for oil recycling. From there, it goes to another facility where it is refined into biodiesel fuel.

Why Can't I Put Window Glass Into My Recycling?

Glass is one of the materials that can be infinitely recycled without losing its purity, strength, or
quality. Very few food and beverage packaging options can make the same claim.

But if glass is this easy and valuable to recycle, why can't ALL glass be thrown into the recycling?

Why Do I Have to Pay For Recycling Service?

Since recycling companies charge customers to pick up recyclables then sell the commodities that are collected, it would seem that companies are double-dipping in a sense.

There are costs associated with picking up, sorting and selling recyclable commodities that the revenue generated from the sale of the materials simply does not cover. Also, money that companies pay for employees, equipment, fuel, maintenance, and insurance greatly impact whether recyclers must charge a fee to provide their service.

Should I Remove Caps From Plastic Bottles Before Recycling Them?

Since the inception of more modern recycling, rules governing acceptable items have somewhat evolved. This is generally due to more improved procedures for recycling collection, as well as more improved processes as the raw commodities get turned into new items.

Although caps on plastic jars and bottles used to have to be removed before recycling them, the Plastics Recycling Industry (APR) asks that caps and closures be kept on plastic bottles and containers at the point of recycling."

How Much Paper Ends Up In the Landfill?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 75 percent of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is recyclable, but only about 30 percent is actually recycled.
 
The reason people don't recycle as much as they could is chalked up to poor recycling habits, lack of education and awareness, and limited collection opportunities. These are the greatest challenges in improving the amount of recovered paper.