Thoughts on recycling...?

Question

I try to recycle aluminum dog food cans and sometimes I'm in a hurry and leave it sitting out..and you know you have to rinse these things before you put them in the recycle so as I was standing there rinsing out and scrubbing these cans under rubbing water I thought to myself...is it better to sit there and waste 15 mins of water trying to clean a can for recycling or is it better to just throw it away and conserve on the water?? Same for peanut butter jars those are even worse, have to stand there and scrub for a while under the hot water.

Answer 1

Here's one most people don't know.  Take all the hair out of your hairbrushes and tear it apart into several little wads.  Then put it under a tree outside.  The birds use it for their nests!  I've been doing this for 20 years.   I wondered if they actually used it many times.  A nest came down during one of those tornadoes we had recently here in Illinois, and wow was I surprised!  It was about 50% my long 40" hair!    

Answer 2

I don't use fresh water to wash recyling. It is worth the effort, we are burying oursleves in garbage, we are also putting resources into the ground that may need to be dug up in the future.

I have an area that I put my recycling items, I rinse them in the sink when I've needed to fill it for other reasons, handwashing pots, wiping down the sink or whatever.

Answer 3

I make sure I rinse the pet food cans immediately and on jars, I just put them into the dishwasher since I put everything else in there without rinsing.  Peanut butter comes out and then I recycle it.

Answer 4

Assuming the things you take to these recycling centers don't just get landfilled, the materials are sold by your local and state governments to private, for-profit, companies.

These companies hire people to sort the refuse and clean those pieces that don't get properly cleaned, and remove labels, etc.

Do you really want to put these people out of work by doing their jobs for them?

And anyway, I'm not certain what the melting temperature is of aluminum and plastics, but I'll bet it's higher than the turning-to-ash-and-blowing-away temperature of dog food, etc.

Answer 5

I've wondered about this myself.

Not only that. But we have to take  recyclables to a center and even if we take as few trips as possible that is a lot of wasted gas and wear and tear on our vehicles meaning our vehicles would last longer if we were not making so many extra trips. Just do the math, it don't add up.

I'm afraid a lot of environmentalism pushed on us is nothing more than a lot of not so well thought out ( feel good ) policy.