26 replies to this topic

[anEgrahm]

I always rinse my cartons and containers before I put them into the recycling bin, whether it be milk cartons or any other type of food container. If you don't rinse it in your home, then before it can be recycled it'll have to be rinsed at some other place, which doesn't really save water either way, if you're looking at it from an environment point of view.

[kat74]

Sometime I reuse some of the containers for my own use like planting out door flowers. I paint them beautiful nice colors to blend them with the outside then plant my kind of flowers. I also send a few to up country because they use them for different thing, so by the end of the month I have reuse most of them but the collector still comes for some. I do rinse them because if you don't they smell even though I rinse them while washing my utensils.

[Pat]

I use grey water to water the garden as often as I can to save water. We have also considered getting a barrel to collect the rain water for the garden.

The recycle center ask that we rinse the food off the jars and cans, I would anyway to avoid ants in the house.

[dconklin]

I always rinse the recyclables out before putting them in the bin.  I put a little water in them, turn the water off and put the lid on the bottle or jar.  Shake the water around and then you can do this one more time.  That or sometimes I use the water while I am waiting for the hot water.  Our water sometimes takes a little longer to get hot.  Take advantage of that water.

[btatro]

Hmm, an interesting point! I do rinse my cans and glass. Just a quick rinse, not a substantial wash, to get the bulk of the food off. My recycle may be indoors for up to a week so I would prefer for the food not to sit there and smell/ rot. All other food goes down the disposal to avoid that issue in the garbage.

[SheforACT]

Every time I have a dirty container to recycle, I make sure to thoroughly wash out all the stains, grease and whatever mess may be sticking to the container’s insides.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Along with my own stuff; I recycle for all my clients (I'm a home care provider)
& once I have them all on board recycling for me
(my car trunk fills up fast )
they have also come around to rinsing things out for me because
1-ants in spring/summer get into the car no matter what (especially soda cans)
2-stinkie (because it may be a week before I'm able to drop the items off)
But what I also had to (gently) teach them was to just use a small amount of water and pour that into the next
into the next.
It's it really horrid like jam or mayo; it takes a bit more and shake it til it's clean rather than adding more water.

It makes no sense to do the right thing by recycling if you're wasting water to do it (especially in a drought
area like the Texas panhandle)

I've several clients tell me over the years that the recycling bag they give me is often bigger than their trash.
Clean paper, cardboard, cans, all types of plastics (they only do up to #5 here; other cites do more)
Sadly, they don't recycle bottles here.
One of the easiest, imo. It's sand for goodness sake. Maybe soonish.