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Contributed by: Jeanette Papp on 6/25/2008

No, this is not an article giving you permission to blow your stack! Please read what some people state are good reasons to remove the plastic lid before recycling plastic bottles. Wise thoughts brought to you by some young smarties:

•Amethyst...
I know someone who used to work at a recycling plant and they said some bottles do get through with lids on and it's like fireworks without the sparkles...it can be quite dangerous and he has been hit by a flying bottle lid...lol...ouch!

•Andy
The bottles are made of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and the lids of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) which is much higher density and therefore a lot harder to recycle.

•Heralda
It is not just a case of different plastics in the lid and bottle. Here's an experiment for you:

put the lid on the empty bottle and then try to crush it.

The bottles are usually designed to take around 200 pounds per square inch pressure on them especially if they are to hold fizzy drinks. If you leave the lids on the bottles, they can't be crushed and take up too much space. I asked about this when I talked to our local waste management officer, and this was the reason given.

I know YOU have the common sense to crush the bottles before you put them in the recycling, but we have to remember that all advice has to be received by all people, and those who are not that genned up need to be told to leave the lids off. Otherwise there will be problems as the recycling trucks try to collect the plastics and find they can't get the volume of plastic needed to make the run economically viable, simply because the darned things can't be squashed with the lids on.

Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080410145643AA4czRt

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Jeanette Papp

Edgewater , CO

Jeanette Papp has posted 13 stories and 1 comment since joining on 3/6/2006. Jeanette Papp 's average story rating is 5.

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