Do you wash rinse bottles out before you recycle?

[GFFord]

I don't normally but I've read that remaining liquid can contaminate the rest of the recycling. Additionally, can the pumps in hand wash be recycled? I've seen on a UK recycling site that you can't but it's vague, should I be disposing of the pumps and recycling the bottles, and also washing the soap out of these bottles?

For those of you who don't rinse can I suggest that you check your council website. Ours states:

Remember to remove film lids and rinse and squash all plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays, food tins and cans where possible, and rinse out all glass bottles and jars before placing them in your bin.

@TorviShieldMaiden honestly depends on the brand as to whether or not the label comes off, we always take off can wraps as they aren't stuck down all round. Whole Earth peanut butter comes off! But small cat food tins don't (just realised I've been putting them in with the wrap still on, having only recently switched back) but glass jars usually aren't too bad. If they do they tend to disintegrate or stick to other things for a couple of washes......

This article is pretty helpful about what you can and can't recycle in the UK
www.recyclenow.com/how-to-recycle/things-you-might-not-know-can-be-recycled

No. I've got enough to do.

You really should be! If you don't, the entire truck load has to be disposed of! Our Recycling trucks have "WASH & SQUASH" written on both sides

No. I've got enough to do.

Seriously? It doesn't take much to swill some water round a tin or a bottle. Our council specifically requests that we do so.

This is nonsense! Stop making excuses for laziness. You're contaminating entire truck loads which WILL end up in landfill as a result! After everyone else has made the effort to rinse them out!

Don't be so lazy! Your laziness is contaminating entire truck loads of clean recycling, causing it all to end up in landfill! Just don't recycle!! The end result would be more favourable than entire truck loads being disposed of!!!!

Yes I usually wait until I have a bowl of used washing up water

That's what we do as well.

Yes. I pop them, cans or bottles into dishwasher with main load.

I wash it all, drinks bottles and cans I rinse out and stand upside down to drain, food tins and yoghurt pots and empty jars and suchlike I wash in the sink after I've washed the dishes or stick in the dishwasher if there's room left.

I wash everything in warm soapy water, wine bottles included.

This is why I don't believe recycling works. Most people don't bother. For everyone saying they diligently rinse there are at least an equal number that don't (most of them won't post here). Some people can't be bothered to put there rubbish in a bin so I'm sure there are millions of households not rinsing or incorrectly recycling.

Yes I rinse everything.

We keep our recycling in a box inside and empty it into the outside bin c.weekly (live in a flat), so I don't want it sitting there stinking, plus dh is a teacher/youth group leader and regularly raids it for some project or another.

@ThePumpkinPatch I don't.

Mostly.yes
the Great big recycle skips at Tesco etc I'm sure gets rinsed and mass sorted by machines and cleaned surely not gone through by hand by individual people ,.they are massive ??
Household orange sacks , yes I wash everything out as I'm sure this DOES get sorted on a conveyor belt by individual people, I don't put much in there I go to the big recycling skips once or twice a week with glass bottles, milk cartons , jars and tins that mostly have gone through the dishwasher

Yes.

I got an email from Milk and
more yesterday saying they couldn't recycle as
Much as they wanted as some of the bottles were too dirty to recycle.

No. They must clean it before processing it.

Our recycling bin doesn't smell because everything that goes in it is clean.