With thanks to Metro, here is guidance on what to put down the garbage chute, not in the recycling bin.
Do not include these items in your recycling container:
- Plastic bags. Plastic bags are a serious problem for recycling facilities. They get caught in machinery, which causes costly shut-downs of sorting lines to cut the bags out of the equipment. Take plastic bags back to stores or drop them off at recycling centers where they are collected separately from other plastics.
- Lids. They are too small or too flat to be sorted out of recyclables and usually end up at paper mills where they contaminate the paper. These items are garbage.
- Trays from microwaveable meals, deli products, prepackaged meals and snacks. Take-out, deli or other food containers that are not specifically round plastic containers, including hinged containers, square snack containers, food containers with a plastic pull-tab, bowls, etc. These items are garbage.
- Styrofoam or other foam products (cups, meat trays, egg cartons, packaging foam, packing peanuts, etc.).
- Plastic packaging that doesn’t conform to the bottle, jar, bucket or round container shapes, such as blister packaging or plastic wrap (stretch or shrink wrap, bubble wrap and bags), or containers smaller than 6 ounces.
Thank you for rethinking your recycling habits.