Do You Need to Rinse Out Your Recyclables?

If you’re serious about sustainability, chances are you do your best to recycle what you can. Besides reducing, reusing, and composting, recycling helps the planet by keeping valuable materials out of the landfill and reducing extraction of virgin materials.

But even for the best of us, recycling can be challenging. Not all recycling facilities are set up to accept the same products, so guidelines may look very different from one town to another. And do you really need to rinse out those recyclables first? The short answer: yes.

The long answer? There are a few steps to take to make sure you’re recycling right. In this article, we’ll explore why rinsing recyclables matters so that you can rest assured your efforts don’t simply end up in the landfill.

Photo by Tanvi Sharma

Why bother recycling?

A lot ultimately ends up in the landfill that could’ve been recycled, taking up valuable space, resources, and energy. That’s because things that are recycled can keep materials such as paper, plastic, and metal in the system, reducing the strain on the planet. After all, trees are a slow-growing, limited resource, as are metals and the petroleum products from which plastics are derived.

In particular, plastics have only been around for a relatively short time, but in that time they’ve managed to show up in all kinds of strange places, from remote islands to the human body. While the latter fact alone is cause for concern, the bigger question is what we can do about it, if anything at all.

Do recyclables actually get recycled?

One of the biggest frustrations of recycling is knowing that even with valiant effort on behalf of green consumers, only a portion of our household waste actually makes it through the process of recycling. Although this number has grown significantly since the 1960’s, it still only sat at around 32% in 2018, a figure which includes both recycling and composting estimates.

Furthermore, up until 2018 the United States shipped a large proportion of its recyclables to countries such as China, paying them to take care of our mess, so to speak. China and other countries have since stopped accepting recyclables, resulting in local municipalities scrambling to adjust, and some cutting recycling programs altogether.

To make matters worse, unclear regulations have paved the way for companies to stamp the recycling symbol on all kinds of products and packaging—lulling consumers into a false sense of sustainability, even if those products can only be recycled under very specific parameters. For more on this, watch this short video:

The modern-day recycling crisis: who’s to blame?

Today, recycling is an expensive process. Without the international market for recyclables, recycling has turned inwards, becoming an issue to deal with on a local, city-by-city basis. And, unfortunately, not all municipalities are willing to eat the cost of recycling.

But who’s really to blame for the recycling crisis? Is it the recycling plant, the city or county determining the recycling budget, the consumer, or the companies creating the products?

The truth is that all of the above play a role in what does and does not get recycled. Without the consumer sorting their household waste, recycling would be impossible. Yet, if there weren’t so many plastic products out there to begin with, things would be far less complicated and confusing.

Ultimately, there should be stricter regulations, especially when it comes to labeling products as “recyclable” when in truth they are not.

That said, it’s important not to give up hope. Recycling is still a vital process that can reduce the effects of climate change, and you play a vital role in making it happen.

Is it important that recyclables are clean?

Now that you understand the bigger picture of recycling, you can continue doing your part at home by recycling the things that you can. Depending on where you live, you likely can’t recycle every single product with a green recycling symbol on it.

For the most accurate guidelines, check your local recycling guide. You can also check out Earth911, a valuable resource that’s compiled many area codes’ worth of recycling data.

Once you know what can and can’t be recycled in your area, you can start sorting your household waste accordingly. But what about items that contained liquids and food? You’ll need to rinse these out before tossing them in your mixed recycling in order to avoid contamination.

In particular, items made of paper and cardboard are easily contaminated by food residues and liquid, which could result in the entire batch being redirected to the landfill. Most of the time, you can avoid this with a simple rinse.

How clean is clean enough?

As with the “what” of recycling, most recycling facilities or local municipalities will have guidelines for the “how.” For instance, they might request you rinse out food containers or avoid flattening milk jugs. Look for flyers around town or check out the local recycling website for more information on local guidelines.

But how clean is clean enough when it comes to recyclables? For those of us with commingled recycling, plastics, paper, and metal all go in one bin to be sorted by type at the recycling plant. Although commingled recycling is a lot easier for the consumer, it creates more of an opportunity for contamination.

Contamination matters because recycling is already an expensive process, and facilities want to maintain the quality of their product so that recycling can continue being worthwhile. Inputs that don’t meet their standards could simply end up in the landfill instead of being recycled as intended.

Contamination usually results from spilled food or liquid, which can easily be prevented. Less commonly, recyclables with food residue can attract critters such as insects and rats. Leave your recycling bins closed for this reason as well as to prevent rain or snow from getting in.

As a rule of thumb, recyclables should generally be empty, clean, and dry. For example, for plastics that contained liquids or food, you’ll want to empty and rinse them out before tossing them in the bin. Don’t worry though, it’s not as much work as it sounds.

How to rinse out your recyclables

You can set your recyclables up for success (and a new chance at life) with very little effort. Paper and cardboard can be flattened to take up less space, but most important is that they don’t get contaminated by anything else you might be adding to the bin.

First, empty out bottles, jugs, and cans, especially soda cans which can be an annoying source of sticky residues. If there’s food residue on your recyclables, use a spoon, spatula, fork, or knife to first scrape this out into your compost or trash.

Then, simply rinse out plastic containers or tin cans with some water. Recyclables don’t need to be sparkling clean; remember, you’re mainly aiming to avoid contamination of paper and cardboard. You can use cold water or even reuse dishwater after washing dishes by hand. Shake the item to remove excess water, then put it in your recycling bin.

Voilá! Your recyclables are ready for their journey to a new life.

What other questions do you have about recycling? Let us know what other topics you’d like us to cover below!