Do you clean your recycling before putting in the bin?

[Frosty66612]

Bit of a boring one but do you rinse out tins and yogurt pots etc before putting them in the recycling bin, or do you just put them straight in?

Yes I rinse mine out. Takes seconds once you're in the swing of it.

Yes, otherwise it will stink

Yep I do. It doesn’t take long. Swoosh under a tap.

Yes
Otherwise it will contaminate all the recycling

Yes. What a horrible job sorting it is. The less rotted food the people on the lines have to deal with the better. It's not all automated, a friend of mine was doing it for a while.

Tins go into any small space in the dishwasher, and yoghurt pots get swooshed under the tap.

I always rinse everything out but my sister says she doesn’t and I shouldn’t waste my time

Yes I clean it. I have communal recycling bins and the majority of my neighbours clean theirs as well.

We are told to, but one reason I do is when I lived else where with individual recycling containers/bins the local wildlife would have a feast on the eve of refuse & recycling collection day.

yes because if theres still food on them they are not recycled as food contaminated, so no point in putting items in the recycling defeats the object of the exercise

@Biber I bet it’s very unpleasant having to sort through it all. If some of the recycling still has food all over it would they not be able to recycle it?

Yes always rinse recycling....but I will admit to absolutely hating pea nut butter jars they never get clean !

Yes, it goes in the dishwasher along with crockery. Just rinsing and shaking doesn't really get rid of claggy stuff. Must admit I didn't used to make as much effort, but understanding that cleaner recycling can get a higher price and is more likely to be recycled made me realise it was a good habit to get into, even if recycling systems are a bit of a mess right now. The main reason British recycling isn't accepted in China now was because it wasn't clean enough.

No

Your sister is an idiot. She is potentially contaminating all the recycling it's mixing with and therefore sending loads more to landfill.

And sorting all the stuff that people add to their recycling bags is a foul job anyway. Imagine doing that in this heat.

Always. It contaminates the recycling otherwise

Yes, you're supposed to.

I will say though that if we were on a water meter, I'd begrudge having to pay my money to clean the recycling. Fortunately our water isn't metered.

I don't 'wash' it as such, but I do give things a rinse.

I will say though that if we were on a water meter, I'd begrudge having to pay my money to clean the recycling. Fortunately our water isn't metered

It makes absolutely no difference. It either gets done at the end of a wash up or goes towards making up a full load in the dishwasher.

I read a horrifying statistic recently that said only 7% or so of the stuff people in the UK send to recycling actually gets recycled because of all the contamination :-(

yes. gets done after the washing up in the same water.

Also does anyone know if you aren’t allowed to recycle black plastic (ready meal packaging etc). My brother in law said the UK don’t currently recycle it but I can’t find anything helpful online

Yes. It would stink and be unpleasant for the recyclers if I didn't.

I do because it stinks otherwise but I do wonder how much that water usage offsets the recycling.

There never seems to be room in my dish washer for much else so it gets washed separately.

Also does anyone know if you aren’t allowed to recycle black plastic (ready meal packaging etc). My brother in law said the UK don’t currently recycle it but I can’t find anything helpful online

The black plastic can’t be seen by visual sorting systems so risks contaminating other groups of recyclables

Yes.