At the office (US), I’ve noticed that people frequently put things like plastic wrap in the “plastic” recycle bin, and it has been my understanding that plastic wrap isn’t recyclable.
What happens generally when something that is not acceptable to the recycling process gets into the recycleables stream? Is each item evaluated individually (e.g. at the plant) to determine acceptablilty, or do they just shove it all in the melting pots, resulting in a ruined batch that they have to throw away?
I’m feeling a bit less enthused about recycling lately thinking that my careful attempts to make sure that my plastic bottles get recycled may be thwarted by people who think they can recycle cheapo plastic pens, used saran wrap, and snack wrappers, potentially ruining the entire batch and making my plastic bottles go to the landfill anyway.
They also have auto-sort machinery these days, which does things like separate metal from plastic, or recyclable metal from non-recyclable metal, from a single waste stream.
I think I read somewhere that some machinery is sophisticated enough to sort recyclables out of landfill-bound trash, but my google-fu is failing me right now.
Sometimes I see a label which says something to the effect that “This container is recyclable (where recycling facilities exist).”
What is the purpose of the parenthesized phrase? I mean, it IS recyclable, even if I’m nowhere near a relevant facility, right? What lawsuit made them include this?
