PLEASE READ

[arrowwhiskers]

So today I got an account with www.earthlab.com and made a bunch of pledges to make my life more eco-friendly, (as you should too, if you have the time and inclination) and I learnt something really important:

You should ALWAYS remove bottle caps from plastic bottles before recycling them. They are made out of a different type of plastic than the rest of the bottle and are not recyclable. If you don't remove the cap before recycling it then your bottle will be discarded at the plant!!

This is basically a world-shattering revelation for me, since it means that 90% of everything I have ever recycled in my *entire life* has probably not...actually been recycled. Crap! So anyway, please remove your bottle caps and spread the word since if you take the effort to recycle something then you should at least get to know that it is in fact recycled.

Okay that's basically the end of my public service announcement.

Another recommendation, however, is that if you are ever taking an accelerated course, don't procrastinate and let yourself get behind...playing catch-up has turned my life into a 24/7 sleepless grinding hell. And I haven't even been wasting time on AIM recently! Aiyaaa...

Comments

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice !

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading! I think I might post a related message to the green community sometime soon.

[liberkaotica.livejournal.com]

OHMYGOD THOSE BASTARDS

:D

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

WHY ARE YOU SMILING, DICK

[liberkaotica.livejournal.com]

I'M SMILING BECAUSE I LOVE YOU

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR YOUR IDLE MOCKAGE OF SRS BSNIZ.

.............^.^-

[liberkaotica.livejournal.com]

BUT I HAVE TOTAL RESPECT FOR THIS BUSINESS! I AM GOING TO REMOVE CAPS ALL TEH FUCKIN TIEM!

AND ITS ALL THANKS TO YOU

[arsinyk.livejournal.com]

How does that work? What do they do with the little ring that stays on, or do you have to cut that off too?

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

That's a very good question. The site just said to remove the cap and throw it away, but it seems silly that you'd have to do that when there is a little of the other plastic still there.

Maybe getting rid of the little ring is easier to automate? Or it's small enough that it is just a trace amount? I honestly don't know. I wish I had someone to ask. I think it's okay to leave it on, since I had heard in a vague way before about how it's better to take the cap off, but I've never heard about people cutting off the rings.

[arsinyk.livejournal.com]

Well, if they can't deal with the little ring, they wouldn't be able to recycle hardly any bottles at all, and it seems like we would have heard about it in that case.

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Trufax, though when I really think about it, it's hard for me to imagine why they'd be able to deal with the rings in a way that was much more efficient/automated than the caps. But--I don't know.

I just quickly looked on the Massachusetts recycling site. http://www.wastecap.org/wastecap/commodities/bottles&cans/bottles&cans.htm (it was the first one that came up on google, oddly enough), and it says here:

For plastic containers: Remove labels and other non-same plastic items from the containers. Depending upon the recycling program and the quantity of material, each plastic grade or resin may have to be separated from the others. Check the bottom of the plastics for numbers 1-7 and separate accordingly. Additionally, and depending upon quantity, plastics may need to be separated by color as well.

So according to this, you should take the label off too? I can't believe that they would just discard all the thousands of bottles that come in with labels and caps still on though, so I bet that it just makes their job easier. So maybe they would appreciate it if you cut the ring off? Hmmmm...