GREENSBORO, N.C.-- If you're serious about recycling or new to the game, you may have asked a coworker or neighbor this question---should you recycle plastic bottles with the cap on or off?
Here is your answer from Tori Carle, Waste Reduction Supervisor with the City of Greensboro.
Recycle your Plastic Bottles with the caps ON the bottles. If the caps are placed in the recycle bin separate from the bottle, they will essentially get lost and end up in the landfill.
“But wait… I thought it was off” you might say. It used to be that way. Caps were made of more than one type of plastic melted together that made recycling virtually impossible.
A couple years ago, the Plastic Bottle Council ruled that caps should only be made of one kind of plastic to promote more recycling. Now that most plastic bottle caps are all made of the same, single material, recyclers can separate them out.
Here is how the recycling process works:
1. You recycle your bottle with cap on
2. Bottle and cap are sorted out from the rest of your recycling (paper, metal, glass, etc) and baled
3. Bottle and cap go to a Bottle Washing Plant
4. Bottles and caps are chopped into little bitty bits called “flake” and washed with water
5. When washed, the cap flake floats and the bottle flake sinks
6. The cap flake is strained off of the washing tank, dried, and sent to be made into composite lumber (plastic decking material)
If you have any additional questions about waste reduction, please do not hesitate to private message or email Crle at recycle@greensboro-nc.gov.