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.

@Georgyporky

"the two bins we have." !!!

We have 5; I thought everyone had 5.

We have 4 but the council haven't collected the food waste bin since the start of the pandemic so that's in with general waste

We have 3 or 4 depending on how you slice it!

My life is too short to wash empty bean cans

But not too short to eat the baked beans presumably

We have 5 too.. initially separating it all took so long, but everyones used to it now.

Seems pretty clear on our recycling leaflet. I was interested in how much gets rejected for not being suitable \ clean, so I did an FOI request and it came back as 3% rejected - which I didn’t think was too bad. Maybe because we have a good leaflet in our county!

Interesting to see what the affect is on drains rinsing everything out.

What @LittleDandelionClock said. I do so much to reduce my energy usage and look after the environment in other ways.

If they want me to recycle, collect the bins more than once a fortnight. Give me a bigger bin that doesn't overflow within 2 days (as I said, I'm not keeping 12 days worth of recycling pilling up in my tiny kitchen because they are too stingy to increase the bin size or do weekly collections - while charging well over 2k in council tax might I add!!!). Don't tell me to save water as much as possible to save the environment, then whine about a streak of bean juice on a can, making it suddenly non recyclable.

It might contaminate stuff but at least theres no limit on amount of recycling bags you can put out.
Youd think they could employ people to sort recycling like they do in parts of france ( and i assume in many other places too)
I dont really feel able to wash all my rubbish, since im already overwhelmed with the dishes

@EvilPea

Interesting to see what the affect is on drains rinsing everything out.

Well, none, because any bits get caught before going down and put in the bin.

We've always washed ours but only so we dont get flies/bugs near the bins.

@Georgyporky

"the two bins we have." !!!

We have 5; I thought everyone had 5.

5??? Wow! What are the different things?

We have 2 - one for recycling, which is collected weekly, and one for rubbish which is collected twice a week.

We have two bins. Each is collected on alternate weeks. Basically every 2 weeks 🤨🤨🤨🤨

I don’t understand why people can’t clean their recycling? Why wouldn’t you?!

1 wheelie bin for rubbish
1 wheelie bin for green waste
1 box for paper
1 box for glass
1 big bag for plastic and tins

It's a massive pain in the arse, especially picking up and carrying the boxes when it's raining. Where I used to live it was one huge blue wheelie bin for all recycling, a slimline wheelie bin for rubbish, a little foodwaste box, and you could rent a brown wheelie bin for garden stuff.

When it's windy here the bags for plastics and tins just blow away and you end up with them all over the streets.

@Georgyporky

"the two bins we have." !!!

We have 5; I thought everyone had 5.

5 here too, but I know I live in a particularly backwards part of the country.

The local council should make it clear. Eg my son just told me I didn't need to remove the paper around cans (which I spend ages doing - I never ever eat any product from a can but my sons have at least 3 or 4 cans a day!!!! mostly beans). he says the heat machines burn the paper off. So I have been wasting hot water and my time removing the labels etc etc.

Another thing that takes me ages is rinsing out the boys' shampoo bottles and stuff like that - the hot waster I use in the sink (never mind the cost of our tap wate r- on a water meter) is possibly a bigger waste of resources than not bothering - but again no one really tells us.

We rinse everything. Where I live glass and metal you have to take to communal recycling bins. So you carry bags or load crate into car with rubbish and take it away yourself. Like hell do I want stale food or bake bean juice all over my car.

Also. Glass bottles from milk, beer, juice all go back into a machine in supermarket and you get your ‘deposit money’ back ( basically they add 10-30cents to all items like that). They have to be washed, and you can decide not to bother recycling or cleaning but then every item costs you more as no ‘deposit’ back. Ie I think our milk is €1.65, then 0.30cents extra for bottle which is refunded if returned clean.
I would say 99.5% of the population return the glass.

Those of you who are rinsing your recycling under the tap: you can save water by rinsing it in your washing up water, once you've done all your pots and pans!

Do people really put recycling in their bin without washing? Their bins must stink

@TurnUpTurnip

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

This is why we're in this shit. Because too many people can't be bothered to do anything. It's your children's future.

Ive just checked our LA info and it says this. Now im confused ... what is "direct contact with food" is this the greasy pizza box? Or a tin of tomatoes even though that can be washed clean? Now im even more confused

I'm sorry to tell you this op but a great deal of recycling doesn't get recycled even if it is spotless. It gets shipped abroad where it is burned / dumped / something else toxic. Whether it is clean is really neither here nor there, the best solution is to try to not but as much stuff in the first place.

Buy

and in my experience, the majority of people just don't realise this.and in my experience, the majority of people just don't realise this.*

They do. It is on every council leaflet, website and other council publication. They are just too lazy to bother as has been demonstrated by the replies on here

Weekly -1 box for glass
1 box for paper
1 big sealable bag for cardboard
1 big sealable bag for tins and cartons
1 food waste bin
Non recyclable - collected every 3 weeks and only one bin bag allowed per week.