Recycle, Re-Use, Reduce.

About six months ago, I was at the Red Cross donating blood and noticed one of the volunteers collecting the tabs from the little orange juice cans. She donates them to some charitable organization, who then turns them in for cash. This made me wonder if the same could be done with water bottle caps.

I didn't really find a good way to handle the caps, but did learn that quite a few bottles that are put in the recycler with caps on are simply tossed out because it is too time consuming for workers to remove the caps.

Here is one explanation found on wiki.answers.com: (Most sites I looked at pretty much said the same thing.)

I've seen this question answered both ways. However, my research shows that plastic recycling is very complex and requires that the same types of plastics be seperated from other types so as to not ruin the meld. Also, just because plastic has the "chasing arrows" doesn't mean that they are recyclable. This just tells the trained eye what type of plastic they are. That being said, I've read that the tops of the water bottles are often made from a plastic resin which is obviously different from the plastic used to make the bottle. When plastic is recycled and melted down it is crusial that all the plastic is the same type. If one cap gets mixed into a batch, the batch is ruined. To be safe, I would at minimum remove the plastic bottle cap from the bottle to make the recycling process easier. Some people even throw the caps away in the garbage. http://www.gcbl.org/forum/can-i-recycle-the-caps-to-my-plastic-water-bottle.

I also learned that if a bottle still contains soda or is soiled, it can contaminate the batch as well. So those bottles cannot be recycled.

I have three recycle bins in my side yard. One that is provided from the city, where we toss all cardboard, milk cartons, newspapers, cereal boxes, etc. One that is mine for only plastic bottles and another for only aluminum cans. We clean everything out - but that is mostly to avoid attracting ants and rodents. Now I will start removing the caps as well.

So if anyone has a good art project for those bottle caps, let me know :-)

As a side note, I'm planning to go kayaking at Castaic Lake on Monday and this whole subject has reminded me of how filthy that lake is due, in large part, to the number of dirty diapers in it. How disgusting is that?! Come on people, use a trash can!