Bottle banks, do you clean bottles first?

lowlands

I just found out that a friend always washes bottles and jars before disposing of them in the bottle bank.
That made me think, because I just throw them in dirty and smelly, with lids on jars and all.
That friend said he had a friend that even washed the labels of the bottles and jars!

Washing and cleaning sounds silly to me, waste of energy, and the glass recycle machines will take out any metals before melting I assume, so why bother taking lids off?

So I am wondering, what is the right thing to do here?

Genghis

Good question. I wash all my glass, and other (plastic, tin, can) containers that I recylce. However I would not take off labels, lids, etc, and I have also often considered whether you should or you shouldn't.

Also, my gf favours a wine in a blue bottle. Now there are never any blue bottle banks. I always wonder - should I put it in with green (blue and green being similar colous), or in with brown (on the basis that afaik brown is usually the result itself of mixed recycled galss). Then of course, I noted that bars -the biggest by volume recyclers of glass, surely - don't distinguish by colour anyway, so would it matter.

Oh, and they certainly don't clean or remove labels either.

Apologies if I hijacked your thread!

lowlands

And then you also have those wine bottles that have a greenish-brownish color :-)

While we are off-topic:
What I don't get at all are people who make all the effort to bring their bottles to the bottle bank, and then at the end stuff the plastic bag they used to carry the bottles in, into the hole to get rid of it.


Anyway, I still think that washing jars and bottles is not a good recycle thought, because of the energy involved, and washing up chemicals being used.

Gyck

I don't wash out bottles (beer, wine) but I do wash out jars that contained stuff like sauces. I wash (and dry) tins before putting them in my green wheely bin, don't want to attract flies and other creatures...

While we are off-topic: What I don't get at all are people who make all the effort to bring their bottles to the bottle bank, and then at the end stuff the plastic bag they used to carry the bottles in, into the hole to get rid of it.

I don't get that either. Most bottle banks are close to supermarkets, so why do people accumulate bottles instead of getting rid of them every time they shop?

Victor

The idea is to rinse them, not wash them as such.

mike65

Yeah we wash out everything thats recycable and tear of the labels if possible.

Mike.

K2

You should rinse all bottles and tins out, if for no other reason than to prevent them stinking out the area you store them in before bringing them to the bottle bank, even if you kept them in a shed. afaik there are signs on these banks asking you to only deposit clean jars / bottle etc but I will be going on Friday so will double check. btw a simple splash and dash under the hot tap should do.

Lids should be removed aswell, that's only takes a little bit of effort on your behalf but its a bigger job for somebody to sort thought the contents of the bottle bank to remove them.

Iron Petes

It's not neccessary to wash out the bottles, remove the lids or labels. It just means that the recycling process is more expensive to run. At present all Glass recycling facilities in Ireland are equipped to process contaminated glass. So I wouldn't worry about it!

BrianD

I always rinse out any recyclable containers. Nothing worse than the smell of stale beer, wine and pasta sauce rising from your storage and I hate when the goo runs out of the bag all over you or your car when you to the bring centre!

K2

yeah, I alwasys seem to get caught with the dregs from the beer cans and bottles running down my sleeve. Thankfully I've not had any waste water dribble out from the refuse bags, I only go to the amenity centre once a month so that can be really nasty smelling stuff.