To ask if you wash plastic bottles and other containers before putting them in the recycling?

[Motherinlawsdung]

Or does the giant recycling machine thingy clean them somehow anyway?

Yes, we wash all food containers. We tend to pop a lot in the dishwasher, tbh. I often wonder how Eco friendly that is.

We do, because we don't have an outside bin and our flat would be humming after two weeks of food containers and beer cans sitting in the recycling bags in the cupboard under the stairs.

Yes I rinse them out but not meticulously,

Almost always wash because our council says they have to be clean. Maybe to do with sitting around for ages before being collected so would reek if they weren't washed?

Big recycling machine doesn't wash anything my husband works at a recycling plant and said the cans are sometimes horrifically mouldy and the place stinks

Yes, rinse out tins and anything that had runny stuff in it. If the lid of the bottle can be recycled, I don't rinse it out, but if I have to put the bottle in without a lid, I do rinse.

Mainly to stop the recycling boxes getting grotty.

Oh just realised I don't wash butter tubs.

No fuck em.

Yes.

I don't.

Not really. Sometimes rinse milk containers and tins but not always and OH never does.

Always, it would revolt me not to.

Er, YANBU. We wash everything we recycle. It sits for two weeks in some cases and would start to smell. We just do it at the end of our washing up, so it's the same water and not wasteful.

I rinse out/wash stuff cos I know it goes to a local recycling centre where actual people sort it from a conveyer belt!

It also means my plastics/cans wheeliebin doesn't stink

Tins and jars (anything with sticky residue) - yes, milk containers/beer cans, water bottles - no.

I do, DH doesn't though.

Dog licks ours clean ....

Nope.

Yes - rinse it out at the same time as I do the dishes

Yes, we rinse them off because 1 sticky, stinking bin is more than enough in the Summer thank you.

Yes absolutely.

Rinse if it needs it! Don't like manky cans knocking about.

Quick rinse but not a thorough scrub. Things like shampoo bottles are almost impossible.

Always, firstly because the council says they should be and say they won't uplift if you don't, secondly because I don't want the bin to smell and thirdly because I don't want to make the job even more unpleasant for the people working in the recycling plant. Its hardly an epic effort just to rinse stuff out, or bung it in the dishwasher.

Yes, of course. Rinse bottles/milk containers; cans shoved in a corner of the dishwasher.

Our recycling doesn't take butter tubs but the dog washes those anyway!

The bin is collected fortnightly, it would be revolting to leave food/milk residues that long - and disgusting for the people who have to deal with it.

Yes I do, but not too thoroughly.