Do Not Break Jars Before Recycling Them
Have you ever felt the need to crush things before sending them for recycling? Well, this is often the right instinct as it saves space and is more efficient for recyclers to collect. For example, plastic bottles are generally best crushed (and left with their lids ) when thrown into the trash can.
Aluminum cans are a rare exception, however, as noted last week in Popular Science magazine . It turns out that if the cans are crushed or flattened, you often make the processing industry much more difficult.
When shattered cans enter the recycling stream, they become more difficult to sort and can contaminate other recyclable materials, according to Matt Minan, senior director of public relations at the Aluminum Association . The flattened carbonated beverage can be sorted, for example, as “paper”, thereby contaminating the recyclable materials. “Shredded aluminum cans can fall through the compartments of the sorting equipment and be lost entirely or incorrectly sorted,” he added.
However, there is a caveat that this may depend on your disposal infrastructure. All recycling programs in the United States work in one of two ways: single-stream recycling (where you throw all the recyclable materials into one container at the curb) or multi-stream or dual-stream recycling (where you separate them into different containers in the curb).
If you are in a city with multi-stream recycling, you are in luck. Whether they are crushed or not, you can dispose of them in any way you like.
However, for many US cities (and nine of the 10 largest US cities, according to a 2015 report ), single-stream recycling is the most common method. This means that you are in a city where it is best to keep banks safe and sound.
So what to do with the banks in question? First, you can determine which sidewalk recycling program is in place in your area. It’s pretty straightforward. If you are tossing split glass, paper, and plastic together in one bucket by the side of the road, you are in a single-threaded program.
And if it’s not already obvious, just make sure you are not trying to crush or flatten the cans when you throw them in the trash can. Again, if you are single threaded, or just plain unsure, use caution and leave them unwavering. A dent will probably do (it doesn’t have to be clean), but resist the urge to crush.