I always assumed a capped bottle takes up more space than an uncapped one. And the idea of throwing something away that still has liquid in it surprises me. You want to encourage your trash bag to leak and/or smell bad?
I throw out the cap and rinse the bottle.
Ditto.
Same here.
I spend quite a bit of time in my car, I try to always recycle, and it’s rare to find recycling available in public places.
So, I put the cap back on, and keep the soda or water bottle in the car until I get home where it goes in the recycling bin.
I really should get in the habit of removing the cap before recycling, it seems.
By the way, for those of you who don’t mind seeing something a little graphic, search online for the video of Richard Alfonso Cerna’s suicide.
I won’t give any spoilers, but it does involve a plastic bottle and bottle cap.
Apparently I’m doing it wrong because I have been putting the cap on things before tossing them in the recycling. I shall cease this practice now.
I’m another who tosses the caps to appease the recycling center.
Me too. Takes up a lot less space that way.
What in the world does that have to do with a bottle or bottle cap?!?
I rinse the bottle and put it in the recycling bin. The cap goes into the trash can. What’s so hard about that? If there are a lot of plastic bottles in the bin, I’ll stomp them flat in the garage on trash night before hauling them to the curb, so they don’t blow away in the wind. Then I’ll set down the brown paper bag full of newspapers and magazines on top to weigh them down.
For reasons I can’t quite work out: I’ve never took the time to work out why I put the cap back on before throwing the bottle in the bin. But it’s what I do.
Maybe it seems to require less effort (carrying one item to a bin and throwing it, as opposed to carrying two things to a bin and throwing them)
Or maybe it’s more hygienic (an open bottle with tiny amounts of liquid left in will attract germs)
Or maybe I just don’t care.
Exactly.
I’m a little new to the Straight Dope and don’t want to violate any rules, and also didn’t want to either get anyone into trouble at work, or have them view a video that’s a little on the graphic side…so I didn’t include a direct link to the video.
For bottles I will return for deposit, which means almost all drink bottles here, I put the cap back on. This is what the soft drink companies prefer, as drips and drabs of soda apparently draw bugs and just generally make the process messier. Since they only deal with a limited number of bottle types, they have machines to remove the caps.
For bottles headed for the recycling bag, I leave the cap off, for reasons already mentioned.