Clean dirty materials before recycling them.
It is important to rinse recyclables before placing them in the blue recycling cart. This gives the materials a better chance at being recycled.
Is Rinsing with Water a Waste?
Water is a renewable resource and usually the materials we recycle are not. Give recyclables a little rinse so they are somewhat clean before placing in the recycling cart. You can even use a brush to help remove residue. Rinsing recyclables helps save the amount of water needed to clean materials during recycling production and gives materials a better chance to be recycled.
For more information on why rinsing recyclables is good, check out this Treehugger.com article. For more information on the benefits of recycling (in addition to saving water), check out this resource from the Environmental Protection Agency. To save water, you can always reuse water to rinse your recyclables as well; dishwater from the sink does a good job since recyclables do not have to be perfectly clean.
The Problem of Plastics and What Plastics to Rinse and Recycle
You may have heard about problems with plastics around the world. Whether it’s birds ingesting plastic bits from items that didn’t get recycled and found their way to waterways, microplastics finding their way up the food chain into our food supply, or plastics recycling markets around the world declining, many plastic problems are starting to add up. We are fortunate that, most of the time, Alameda County Industries (ACI) is able to recycle plastics numbers one through seven (in the small triangle “chasing arrows” on the bottom of plastics) domestically in the United States, except polystyrene foam. Sometimes, plastics #s 3, 4, 6, and 7 are more challenging to recycle because markets fluctuate and buyers for these plastics are not always available; these materials become residual and will sometimes be landfilled.
Plastic film and bags need to be clean and dry, and bundled up in a bag the size of a soccer ball or larger, and then placed in the blue recycling cart. Please do not place bags and film or packaging wrap loose in the recycling cart. If bags and film or packaging wrap are wet or dirty, they should be placed in the garbage cart.
Small plastic items, such as straws and utensils cannot be recycled since they are too small and difficult to process, so they should be placed in the garbage cart.
For more information on what can be recycled in CVSan, please check out the residential recycling page or the “What do I do with?” page. Thank you for doing your part to reduce waste so we can get closer to our goal of zero waste by 2029!
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