Question:

Why is there a sign on the plastic bottle recycling containers not to throw in the lids?

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Why is there a sign on the plastic bottle recycling containers not to throw in the lids?

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  1. Because the lids are made from a different material than the jug/bottle is and when the recyclable material is melted down it would contaminate the finished processed material.


  2. The lids are often made of a different plastic than the bottle, and not all plastics are equally recyclable.

    Most places take 1 and 2, but not all take the other numbers.

  3. most bottles have a recycleing number of 2 or 6

    the liids are usually 4

  4. a lot of the times the lids are a different type of plastic that many people believe to be non recycle. which can be true but isn't always it depends on you local recycling facilities. but they do need to be taken off the bottle so the melt down faster in the plant.

  5. Plastic goes to one recycling center and metal (or whatever material the lid is made out of) goes to another. It's for sorting purposes.

  6. There isn't! They merely ask that you remove the lid from the bottle before putting BOTH bottle and lid into the recycling. the reason is because the first step in the process is to crush all the plastic into dense, compressed blocks. If all the bottles had their lids on this would not be possible. Their combined strength would prevent the crusher from doing this.

    Try crushing just one plastic bottle yourself, with its lid on, down into a small size; compared to doing the same with its lid off.

  7. While some lids are recyclable, others are not, and as others have said, the container and the lid are not always of the same material.  In addition, some lids have rubber inside them, which, as others have said, would contaminate the plastic.

    Now, if you imagine the people who are sorting all of this plastic, etc., they must remove all of the lids that people have left on the containers/bottles.  This cannot be an easy job.  So, they ask us to do it for them, saving them this aggravating, and time-consuming step.  Since we want recycling to be profitable for those who do it, we would be wise to listen.  Sadly, I don't think that most recycling companies do a great job of informing the public.  I try to pay attention, and I only learned this bottle cap thing recently when I called for information.

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