I have always been a hit or miss recycler because we live with water restrictions, and I hated using water to clean things out, since I’d always heard that only “clean” items should go in the bin. Recently I was told that nope; if it’s like a mayo jar, just use a spatula to get out the most of it, and toss it in. Isn’t that, like, garbage then??
It depends.
In the olden days, you had to soak the labels off of glass jars before recycling them. But recycling facilities have improved substantially since then. They are moving in the direction of requiring the minimum amount of effort from the recycling public, even if that sometimes causes potentially recyclable materials to be ruined.
It would depend on what the age of your local recycling plant is. Most recent vintage recycling facilities can deal with a bit of mayo residue. On my city’s web site it specifically states that it is not necessary to rinse cans and bottles.
Contact your local recycling provider to find their policy. I bet you’ll find that it is OK. Most recyclers are loathe to publish a lot of detailed rules about how to prepare recycling materials. Experience has shown that if you give out a lot of details people just say “screw it, this is too complicated.”
Um… what? If it can be recycled then no. It is recyclable material. Definitionally, it’s not garbage.
Recycling systems are much more sophisticated than they used to be. grease and food is no longer said to “ruin” recycling in most places. In some places you don’t even have to sort, but just heave everything recyclable into one bin. Check with your municipality for the rules that apply to you.
You can probably Google “[your city] recycling” to find out what the specific policies are for your location. For example, in Chicago:
Which is pretty much exactly what I do. Now that I have a dishwasher, jars are often tossed in with the dishes before getting dumped in the recycling bin. Otherwise I’ll rinse it out to avoid getting bugs or smells in the kitchen before we haul it out, but it’s not like I’m scrubbing them to a shine.
I recycle mostly cans and other scrap metal items. As the cans are destined for a furnace sufficiently hot to melt metals (aluminum and iron, mostly) food residues are not really a problem.
Likewise, anything glass that is to be melted down is going into a furnace. Mayo residue will burn off, like other residues.
The only place I think it still might be an issue is plastics, in which case call your recycle and ask “just how clean does this have to be?”
My local recycler will also take things like paper. They won’t pay you for it (unlike the metals, which I get cash for) but they will take it off your hands for nothing. If you’re already going that way, why not? Also, my area does not have municipal garbage pickup. You have to pay for someone to collect your garbage, which gives an incentive to reducing garbage volume. Hence the popularity of turning in cans, metal items, and recyclable paper even if you don’t get paid for the paper.
Perfect, thank you, the guy who told me that is actually the City’s recycling coordinator, but I didn’t have the time to press him, and just didn’t want stinky stuff sitting in the bin!