I stopped rinsing my recycling after visiting the Denver sorting plant

Took a tour of the Denver recycling center last spring and saw workers pulling plastic bags out of the glass conveyor by hand. The guide said rinsed containers actually rot faster in the truck and stick to paper loads. So now I just scrape jars clean and toss them dry. How much time do you waste scrubbing peanut butter out of jars before tossing them?

1 comments

1 Comment

iris_jones891mo ago

Yeah this whole rinsing thing is a waste of time and water. I switched to just scraping my jars clean a couple years ago after my neighbor who works at our local recycling center told me the same thing. The peanut butter jars I just leave them with a thin layer and toss them in the bin. I figure the processing plant has machines that can handle a little residue. Plus all that scrubbing was taking me like five minutes per jar and I never felt like it made a difference anyway. Now I just give things a quick scrape and call it good.