To not wash out recyclable containers??

[DisgruntledGoat]

I think it's totally unnecessary to blast containers with water that are going to be cleaned and recycled anyway. My DH sometimes puts them through the dishwasher which drives me nuts. They flip the right way up and fill with dirty water and when you pull the rack out they spill water everywhere covering the clean stuff with the dirty water that's trapped inside. Plus you wouldn't wash out non recyclables to put them in the general bin?! AIBU or does anyone else put dirty recyclables straight into their recycling bins?

I am agog. It never occurred to me to rinse; i thought things just went into big melty incinerators or crushers by electrickery like the scary bit inToy Story 3 so it all burnt off.

The Wooster household will mend its ways.

I'm a quick rinser. DH washes stuff more thoroughly than I wash dishes. I think it's a waste of time but leave him to it.

I rinse it or put curry containers etc through the dishwasher. To prevent a whole load of recycling going to landfill!!!

Peanut butter/marmite/pickle jars can be washed easily by filling about a fifth full, screwing the lid on and shaking well.

i only rinse things which will stink such as bean cans, I usually just empty my soya milk bottles or drink cartoons but not wash them out

Stack dishwasher.

Usually have half bowl of hot soapy water to wipe over high chair and cupboards, used recycling stuff goes in last, quick swoosh round and into the bin.

Dishwashing it is unnecessary u less your dishwasher is empty but to put dirty stuff in there is at best lazy. Or are you so stupid you can't manage a simple task. I truly wonder how some people manage to breath in and out on their own.

ShalliShanti, I share your habit of pouring a bit of hot water into the marmite jar, shaking it and putting it into a stew.
I do put tins and jars in the dishwasher. It amounts to about 2% of a normal load. We'd have a garage full of mice if we didn't get them clean, and I'd cut myself on some of the tins.

I rinse out everything for recycling and rubbish if it's had food in it. Horrible to think people just leave it for recycling people or dustmen to deal with.
Cleaning it takes no time at all.

You do better than I do - I don't recycle

Cubtrouble, you're on shaky ground with your 'are you so stupid '. People have different abilities and different priorities. Thank you for telling us what you're thinking though.

I always wash them, otherwise they will stink by the time the bin men come, and the smell will attract flies. They go in the dishwasher if there's room, otherwise a quick rinse or wash.
I am light years from being a fanatical house-cleaner, but personally I think putting unwashed food containers in the rubbish is gross.

For the same reasons reasons I put all potentially stinking food waste - bits of meat or fish, though there is never much - in the freezer until the night before the bin men come.

Ours has tin cans, glass and plastics all in together in a huge wheelie bin that is collected every 4 weeks. More often than not the glass breaks when it is dropped in, and you can hear it all smashing when it gets tipped into the lorry. And it sounds like it gets all mushed up together.

Similarly newspaper and tetrapacs go together too but it now seems that plastic coated paper can't actually be recycled after all. I'm actually sceptical about how much actually gets recycled in fact.

Dishwashing it is unnecessary u less your dishwasher is empty but to put dirty stuff in there is at best lazy

Well, you'd have to be spectacularly thick to put clean stuff in a dishwasher.

I'm amazed that people dishwasher their recycling, MN is an eye opener... I swish mine around in the washing up bowl at the end.

What is there to be amazed about filling a gap in a dishwasher with recycling? It would be stupid for me to fill a washing up bowl I wouldnt otherwise be using just to wash them.

We have to juggle to fit everything in the dishwasher. The recycling would need its own run!

I'm really not convinced about peanut butter jars.

Hot water, lid on and shake works well for marmite, jam, pickles etc. but IME peanut butter presents a special challenge and takes a LOT more than that to shift. There must come a tipping point where the overall environmental impact of cleaning and recycling an item is greater than the environmental impact of creating a new one from raw materials and I think the peanut butter jar must be approaching it.

That's without factoring in the human time and effort to get the bloody thing clean which could perhaps be better spent lobbying manufacturers to use less packaging in the first place (or, in the case of peanut butter, to design a jar that's easier to clean).

Most things I cheerfully rinse and recycle but when it comes to the peanut butter jar, I Just Don't Know! I have at various times:

1. expended a fuckton of hot water, detergent, time and effort to get the thing clean, then recycled.

2. screwed the lid on and chucked it in dirty (DH just informed me that this is bad because you are mechanically attaching dissimilar materials).

3. guiltily chucked it in the landfill rubbish.

This is the most first-world problem I have ever had

I chuck mine in the landfill without the guilt, personally.

Thanks Countess, I'll do that in future and say 'MN said so'

I am all for recycling, I just don't like the idea that our time is completely valueless, so when one item takes many times longer to deal with than other items I think we are entitled to factor that in.

I rinse milk cartons etc when they are empty, same with meat packaging etc.
Tins etc are rinsed in the dregs of washing up water
Marmite and peanut butter I stick in the sink and fill with boiling water leave for a few minutes then rinse, Ive never had to scrape peanut butter off?

Not rinsing recycling is rank

My dad worked in a glass recycling plant. He said you didn't need to wash them as bottles got crushed and the heat used to melt the glass burnt away organic debris. Also bare in mind that if we did all the work they wouldn't need to employ people.

They need to sell peanut butter in margarine tubs...problem solved

I have dishwasher and sink. I keep them on the side next to sink.If they are really bad ( like peanut butter) they are popped in with a full dishwash load, if I'm handwashing stuff like wine glasses, I give stuff a swill, thenI used to pour the water on the garden so it was not wasted at all.

OK, I'll bite:

I don't recycle :o

Why is that funny?

My sons job is to take out the recycling. We have a bit tub in the kitchen. He's 19 and his "I'll do it in a bit" sometimes lasts for days. I get quite creative with cramming more in. Cardboard boxes around the perimeter of the tub to increase the capacity. If we didn't rinse our house would stink more than it does
The glass recycling is my OH job as we need to drive to a bottle bank and it's too heavy for me to lift........and I'm too ashamed to take it anyway😂
Common courtesy to give it a quick rinse too.