My friend called my recycling 'wish-cycling' and it totally fixed my system

I was feeling good about my recycling bin, tossing in anything with a triangle symbol. Then my buddy came over, looked in the bin, and said, 'Dude, you're just wish-cycling. Half that stuff can't be processed here.' He pointed out my greasy pizza box and that clamshell plastic from berries. I looked up our town's rules in Phoenix and realized he was right. Now I keep a printout of the accepted items list on my fridge. I also got a small bin for actual trash next to the recycling so I can sort right away. It cut my recycling contamination by a ton. Has anyone else had to completely relearn their local recycling rules?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ray1d ago

Man, I used to be the same way, just tossing anything plastic in there. What finally got me was learning that a greasy paper bag or a coffee cup can mess up a whole batch of good recycling. It felt like doing the right thing, but I was basically just making more work for the sorting center. I had to check the city website and it was a real eye-opener, like you can't recycle bottle caps unless they're screwed back on. Now I'm way more careful about rinsing stuff and checking numbers.

milesj701d ago

My buddy ruined his whole bin with a pizza box once.