To tell you that if you don't wash your recycling...

[MrsColon]

...before you put it in the recycling bin, it won't get recycled?

If you don't rinse out cans, containers, bottles etc. they will be rejected and go into landfill.

Not enough emphasis is placed on this in recycling campaigns, and in my experience, the majority of people just don't realise this.

You are right. I only know as DP worked is waste and would nearly faint if I tried to put a pizza box it. "IT'S CONTAMINATED!!" Scared the shit out of me.

This is why so many don’t bother recycling then. Already got enough things to do tbh

I didn’t know this until dd had a lesson about it at school and came home and told me. I’ve been washing everything out since, and also not recycling pizza boxes etc

There has been a general lack of engagement and dialogue with the public on recycling.

I didn't know this. How thoroughly does it need to be washed? A quick rinse or through the dishwasher? Bleached?
I know not to put pizza boxes in but used tins?
Thanks for flagging this up.

@SummerHouse that’s what I thought, but this article I read today suggests otherwise.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59133056

It’s so location dependent that it’s really hard to know what to do for the best. Local councils should be much clearer on what they can and can’t accept - this would take the guesswork out of it and would improve their recycling figures.

Pizza boxes can be put in our green bins.

So if I wash each thing I put for recycling, and the bin folk tip my whole bin in with every other streets recycling, do the people at the other end look at each individual item and determine the clean items and pick them out?

curious

I give plastics and glass a bloody good rinse under the tap but it's not pristine. What are the rules for cardboard?

My husband is always trying to sneak dirty stuff into the recycling. It does my head in, I think it's just laziness.

He knows as I have told him repeatedly so has no excuse.

I was rinsing my milk bottle this morning wondering if you still need to. It was years ago I was told we should rinse them and haven't heard it since

No idea if I should still be doing it or not

After a while it just becomes a habit to wash recycling. I've been doing it since it started. I know not everyone does because when we go to a campsite I've seen dirty ready meal containers in there contaminating the rest.

Recycling is so badly organised in this country, there are no consistent standards of what’s recyclable, manufacturers just pop ‘check local recycling’ on their packaging cos that looks better than ‘only if you fancy washing it out, collecting 50 others and then posting to Norway’, and don’t get me started on the big bags that have to be kept outside that we have here instead of wheelie bins, which means that the recycling has to be stored inside somewhere until bin day or it just blows across the garden

Why haven't they told us this? It all seems so hopeless

That’s not true, it’s different for all council areas. Ours sent out a leaflet saying we didn’t have to rinse it out. I do because I don’t like the idea of old milk kicking about for weeks on end but you don’t have to.

Cardboard needs to be clean, that it not contaminated with food so generally the pizza box or greasy cake base can't go in. The cardboard box my tomatoes come in is clean so goes in recycling.

Wouldn't you just wash it anyway so the bin isn't smelly

On the BBC today they said pizza boxes are recyclable if you remove any food. Which is it?

We are on a water meter so I don't wash the recycling religiously as we try to conserve water. As a pp says aswell, the bin is tipped in with everyone else's who will mostly be unwashed aswell. Kinda makes it seem pointless. I only really do it to spread the amount of rubbish out equally between the two bins we have.

Quick rinse so no obvious residue. No greasy pizza boxes. Detergent / full on scrub not wanted / needed.

You can't remove soaked on grease.🤷

Surely not just chuck it but anything that's dirty could go for a wash at the facility, or this ought to be set up.

I wash pizza boxes then put them in recycling

I always wash or rinse it. I can't believe people don't know to do this.

My council specifically say no need to wash so this isn’t true in all areas.