What Should Not Go Into Recycling
I’ve been recycling. A lot. In fact, nearly three quarters of the trash that leaves our house goes to recycling.
Last week, when the garbage truck came to pick up our trash, it only had two small bags lining the bottom. But it got me thinking about all the stuff I’m taking to the recycling bins and so I did some research. It turns out I may have been doing more harm than good.
I hate to put this type of information out there, because so many people already think it’s a big hassle to have to recycle anything. But if you are putting paper and cardboard products into recycling bins with food on them, you could be ruining the batch of recycled materials.
For example, the recycling dumpsters in our neighborhood say that we can put all paper and cardboard products in - including cereal boxes and, yes, pizza boxes. What they don’t tell you is that the food contaminates the process. A pizza leaves grease and oil residue on the bottom and/or top of your pizza box. When that oil gets mixes with the water used to break down the cardboard, the paper recycling batch gets spoiled.
While it can be a big enough pain to separate all your trash and recycling, it’s important that you add another step to the process. Otherwise, don’t bother with any paper products. Don’t recycle any cardboard or paper that has food on it. Don’t bother with napkins, paper towels, tissues, pizza boxes or paper plates if they’ve had food on them. Throw them away (or better yet - don’t use them at all…)
However, you can cut away the ruined portions of these items. Yes, it’s a pain to do, but it’s got to happen to be effective.
This really only happens with the paper products. Water is used to break down the paper into a slurry material that can be recycled into new products. But metal, glass and plastic use heat to break down the raw materials to make new products. Heat isn’t affected by the oil or grease in food.
I do recommend that you rinse the food out of the metal, plastic or glass containers, though. You wouldn’t want your recycling center to get too stinky 
