Did you know there are ways to do recycling wrong? Non-recyclable materials can force recycling plants to more or less shut down their operations while they fish the garbage out of their machinery. Here are five materials often mis-recycled. Watch out for them!
Pizza boxes ~ the grease absorbed by cardboard boxes affects the process of making cardboard into new materials.
Saran wrap ~ plastic wrap can jam machinery used to recycle the more rigid plastic containers.
Batteries ~ household batteries today can be thrown in the trash because they do not have as much mercury as batteries manufactured before 1997 when the mandates to phase out mercury were passed.Shredded paper ~ is too small to sort, the pieces literally fall through the cracks of the sorting machines and end up all over the floor of the facility, or worse, in with the glass.
Plastic lids ~ while an increasing number of plastics are now recyclable (you should still check the number on the bottom against your local program rules) most plastic caps are NOT recyclable and are a significant contaminant.
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