Beyond Waste: Recycling with Recology

Recology, the recycling and waste company for the City of Shoreline, shares the following recycling tips for Earth Month.

Looking for a way to celebrate Earth Month? Take this opportunity to sharpen your recycling skills by following a few simple rules.

Rule #1: No food in the recycle bin.
Recyclables should be clean, empty and dry. But how clean is clean enough? Take a yogurt cup or a peanut butter jar, for example. Give these containers a quick rinse and scrape with a spoon or spatula before tossing in the blue bin. This little bit of extra effort helps prevent food scraps from contaminating the rest of the clean materials you spent time sorting!

Rule #2: Quick tips for identifying recyclable plastic
Don’t let the little numbers on the bottom of plastic materials throw you off. Instead, think about your plastics dimensionally. Most 3D plastics can be thrown into the recycle bin (think: milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles, plastic water bottles), while many 2D plastics (think: single plastic shopping bags, chip bags and plastic wrap) go in the garbage.

Rule #3: The 3 inch rule
Recyclables must be at least 3 inches in diameter to be accurately recycled. Items like metal bottle caps, plastic utensils, and shredded papers are not big enough to be accurately identified by machinery at our recycling facility. Instead, shredded paper should be placed in your compost bin, and small container lids* and plastic utensils should be thrown in the garbage.

*ONLY WHEN screwed back on an empty plastic bottle, plastic caps can be recycled!

Questions about what’s recyclable? Visit our website or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!