Recycling Question - Lisle,IL

I have a son who is obsessed with the garbage truck and recycling truck. He is almost six and has had this obsession since he was one. Between his demanded google searches, the kid shows and the documentaries I have been subjected to, I feel like a trash expert. :) The dirty stuff will get recycled. The containers have to be washed and labels removed on site, so that last bit of peanut butter will get out of the jar without you wasting gallons of water to clean it. Plastics and glass are subjected to high heat, so organic material is often burned up, the muck left behind doesn't hider the process. Paper is is cleaned using water. This is why you can't recycle pizza boxes, the organic matter stays around and can contaminate the recycling batch. They do have people sorting out non recycleables. It slows down the process and some items can gum up machines if they are missed (but I think this is very rare).

God knows how they work but the machines that sort can deal with that. Sometimes my kids do the same thing. :(

It still gets recycled. I can't tell you how many bottle tops manage to make their way into the recycling bin and they're not supposed to ;) The sort the materials (paper from plastic), inspect (for those darn tops), rinse (for your husband), then proceed to the actual recycling process.

A little leftover food is fine ;)

You've received many diverse answers here, I think the best thing to do would call your local garbage recycling company. I just happen to be taking my kids to our garbage/recycling landfill on Friday of this week. I want them to know how important it is for them to reduce, reuse and recycle. I think once they see how the plastics, tin, aluminum etc. sit in piles and piles of trash, they will see how important it is.

Most cities have recycling machines that sort that type of thing and you really don't "need" a separate recycling bin... Your bin just helps the process that most of the trash goes through anyway.

Don't fret. If this is the worst thing he does, you are blessed!

We have bins to keep recycle stuff in. The city gives them to each house and we are supposed to put paper, cans, jars, plastics all in together and they sort it out. For a while we were supposed to remove lables but now we dont have to. The machines do whatever it is to take care of it. I try to keep styrofoam and wax coated stuff out of it, but someone keeps dumping them in. I also rinse things out, not because the recycle plant wants me to, but because as that bin sits in my garage it would attract bees, ants, bugs, and stink. I just dont need a milk jug smelling like sour milk when I go out to do laundry. My husband also thinks he needs to screw the lids on tight before he tosses a bottle or jar in the bin. I cant convince him he should take it off, and throw it in the garbage, and not seal the jars and bottles first. Im sure the machines work hard enough crushing things and dont need the added pressure of popping a milk jug or a Sobee bottle with the lid screwed on tight. Also, did you know those plastic bags you get groceries in are not recyclable? I didnt know that till just last year.

Great question! I never really thought about it.

My hubby is horrible when it comes to recycling. Drives me nuts, but it fits into the "choose your battles" catagory.

Sadly when garbage gets tossed into recycling a lot of places dump the whole load. One pizza box can cause the entire load to be deemed trash. ( at least thats the way it is here, I think its just that they dont & wont take the time to make sure there is no trash so they see one piece and thats it) As for the rinsing part that I think most of the places do anyway so I doubt that it matters if you do it or not