When you recycle are you wasting water by rinsing out the bottles and cans?

Question

or do you put them in the bin dirty? Does that defeat the purpose of recycling?

Answer 1

pretty much

because they'll be completely

shredded and cleaned and don't

nessicarily come back as bottles

that you might drink with

could come back as ur keyboard

or a panel on ur new hybrid

Answer 2

You actually don't need to rinse out plastic or glass containers. Just dump out any excess food. Recycling centers wash the containers anyway.

Answer 3

no

Answer 4

sorta but its better to recycle and  use a little water. Just wash them fast they are just being put in a giant pile and burned back to new. It can't hurt to clean. You don't have to though!

:D   Save the world one day at a time!!

Answer 5

I use water to rinse out the cans/bottles -- & then I re-use the water I just used.

for example: rinse out a milk bottle, add the water to the dog's food, bring the milk bottle back to the farm for more milk.

Rinse out the BBQ sauce bottle, add the liquid to the soup/chili I'm making, put the bottle in the recycle bin.

Rinse out the mayo jar, put dish soap in the frypan & swirl it around, use the mayo-jar-water to scrub the fry pan for its first round (then toss that water & use clean water for a second cleaning).

Rinse out the pickle jar, toss the water on the lawn (I don't water the lawn otherwise!), put the jar & lid in the dishwasher (it's an energystar model) to be re-used.

Answer 6

it depends on the bottle or can. If it is an empty soda can, you don't need to rinse it out, but if there are obvious food chunks in a glass container, clean it up first. Making glass requires much more energy than using a little bit of tap water. But if you are really concerned, you can save all of your recycled goods and wash them out at the same time, or after you finish doing your regular dishes. Then you'll be more efficient.

Answer 7

i just recycle i dont rinse haha

Answer 8

If you rinse them I suppose at the moment yes, but in the long run I think you're helping the world by recycling? But there are those who just toss the item into the bin uncleaned, but is that a bad thing? I guess this question has more than one answer...

Answer 9

I think the water is more valuable than the recycle-ables. Leave them dirty. They clean them in the recycle process better than you will.

A lot of the items recycled, especially glass which is essentially a rock, would do no harm in a landfill, its the toxic stuff that's a problem.

The energy savings after all that handling and transportation is doubtful, too, except for aluminum.

If we were recycling containers that wern't broken down, like in the old days, this would be more efficient.

Answer 10

I SAVE MY DISH WATER AND RINSE CANS AND BOTTLES BEST I CAN I FEEL I SAVE WATER THAT WAY. I ALSO USE THE BATH WATER FROM MY INFANT TO FILL THE SINK AND ADD A CAP FULL OF BLEACH TO RINSE ALSO..HOPE THIS HELPS AND NO I DO NOT THINK IT IS A WASTE TRISH IN PA

Answer 11

no, I consider use of a very small amount of water better and safer than the results I would have to implement for "pest control"

Answer 12

It depends upon how soon they will be picked up.  Leaving dirty bottles and cans around will attract insects and rodents so rinse out if it is going to be more than a day.

Answer 13

No,

this is done through a flowsheet, in case the flow sheet is inefficient then certainly the water is wasted.

thnks

Answer 14

In Sacramento, our water goes back to the river or is used to water plants by the treatment plant. In fact, I send the stuff to them instead of using the garbage. Water is always water. what we need is more storage. And that leads to small hydro electric power plants.